A court in London has been hearing evidence from Mohammed Asha, one of two doctors accused of conspiring to detonate car bombs in London and Glasgow in June 2007.

Taking the stand for a second day, Jordanian-born Asha described his relationship with his co-accused, Bilal Abdulla.

Asha said he and Abdulla were two entirely different characters. Asha described himself as serious and obsessed with his career in neurology. Abdulla, he said was not like that. Indeed, Abdulla regularly criticized him, he said, for being too materialistic and insufficiently concerned with the suffering of fellow-Muslims.

Asha told the jury how he had pleaded with Abdulla not to return to his native Iraq in the middle of 2006 after Abdulla had failed an important medical exam in Britain. "I made him swear on the Quran not to do anything foolish," he told Woolwich Crown Court.

Asha said Abdulla had become increasingly emotional and angry about the situation in his home country and he feared his friend was going back there to fight with the insurgency. "I will come back to Britain if you get me a job," Asha described Abdulla as telling him.

The court heard how in Abdulla's absence Asha succeeded in getting him an interview for a position at a Scottish hospital. Abdulla then returned to Britain almost immediately and, after being prepped by Asha, successfully landed the job.

Asha's lawyer, Stephen Kamlish QC, then proceeded to ask Asha about a series of phone conversations and meetings he had had with Abdulla in the months leading up to the attacks. The prosecution asserts these communications played an integral part in the alleged conspiracy.

Asha told the court he had handed over a mobile phone to Abdulla, at a meeting in Preston in February, because he had more than he needed. He described how he had bought four phones from a shop in Birmingham that offered cashback and free international calls so long as multiple phone contracts were purchased. Addressing the jury directly he asked: "Why would I give a mobile phone in my name to a person I know is about to commit a crime?"

The prosecution has argued that Abdulla and another man, Kafeel Ahmed, an engineer from India, drove down from Scotland to London in two Mercedes cars and tried to detonate them in the city's West End entertainment district. The jury was told the bombs' mobile phone detonators had failed to go off properly. The next day, the prosecution has said, the pair drove a third car into Glasgow airport and tried to blow it up in the terminal building but it too failed to explode. Ahmed later died of injuries sustained in the incident.

Asha and Abdulla both deny charges of conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosions. The trial continues.