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| 'Lyrical terrorist' wins appeal | 'Lyrical terrorist' wins appeal |
| (20 minutes later) | |
| A former Heathrow worker, who called herself the "lyrical terrorist" because of the extremist poems she wrote, has won an appeal against her conviction. | |
| Samina Malik was accused of collecting information likely to be useful to those preparing a terrorist act. Ms Malik, 24, from west London, was found guilty at the Old Bailey in November of owning terrorist manuals. | |
| The Court of Appeal has now quashed the conviction after prosecution lawyers conceded it was unsafe. | The Court of Appeal has now quashed the conviction after prosecution lawyers conceded it was unsafe. |
| We consider that there is a very real danger that the jury became confused and that the prosecution have rightly conceded that this conviction is unsafe Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips | |
| Ms Malik, who was not in court, was given a nine-month prison sentence suspended for 18 months in December last year. | |
| She became the first woman to be convicted under Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000. | |
| The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips, was sitting in the Court of Appeal with Mr Justice Goldring and Mr Justice Plender. | |
| He said: "We consider that there is a very real danger that the jury became confused and that the prosecution have rightly conceded that this conviction is unsafe." | |
| The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it would not be seeking a retrial. | |
| Prosecution 'right' | |
| Sue Hemming, head of the CPS's counter terrorism division, said 21 documents the prosecution relied on in Ms Malik's trial "would no longer be held capable of giving practical assistance to terrorists". | |
| "However, other documents in her possession, including the al Qaida Manual, the Terrorist's Handbook, the Mujahideen Poisons Handbook and several military manuals, clearly retain that potential. | |
| "We therefore have no doubt that it was right to bring this prosecution." | |
| But taking into account the time Ms Malik had spent on remand before her first trial and the likely non-custodial sentence she would receive upon conviction in a retrial meant the CPS had decided not to take the case to court again, she said. | |
| "Ms Malik was not prosecuted for her poetry. She was prosecuted for possessing documents that could provide practical assistance to terrorists," she added. | |
| Ms Malik posted extremist poems on websites under the screen name "the Lyrical Terrorist", but has always insisted they were "meaningless". |