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Four guilty over terror material | Four guilty over terror material |
(about 1 hour later) | |
Three students and a schoolboy have been found guilty of possessing material for terrorist purposes. | |
Prosecutors had said the internet propaganda was designed to encourage Islamic terrorist martyrdom. | |
Schoolboy Mohammed Irfan Raja, now 18, and Bradford University students Aitzaz Zafar, 20, Usman Ahmed Malik, 21 and Akbar Butt, 20, were all convicted. | |
Awaab Iqbal, 20, was found not guilty on one count of possession, with the jury undecided on another count. | Awaab Iqbal, 20, was found not guilty on one count of possession, with the jury undecided on another count. |
The judge gave the jury a majority direction on the count on which they were undecided. | |
They will continue their deliberations over the final charge against Iqbal, from Bradford, who was given provisional bail to return to court on Wednesday. | |
The four convicted are due to be sentenced later this week. | |
Computers searched | |
The university students were arrested after Raja - a London schoolboy at the time - ran away from home in February 2006. | |
He left a note for his parents saying he was going to fight abroad and they would meet again in heaven, the Old Bailey trial heard. | |
Raja had been communicating and exchanging material with the students on the internet, before going to stay with them. | |
But he returned home three days later after a telephone call in which his parents begged him to come back. | |
Raja, of Ilford, Essex, was convicted of two Terrorism Act charges of having articles for terrorism; Zafar, of Rochdale, Lancashire, was convicted of one charge; Malik, of Bradford, West Yorkshire of two charges; and Butt, of Southall, west London, found guilty of one charge. | |
He [Raja] was radicalised in his mind and intent on his course Andrew Edis QC | |
The court was told their computers were searched and led to their arrests. | |
The trial heard police found material on their computers downloaded from the internet, and chatroom conversations said to be intended to encourage terrorism or martyrdom. | |
Among the items found was a film showing atrocities against Muslims around the world, aimed at encouraging martyrdom, the Old Bailey was told. | |
Prosecutors said the men also had a US military guide to terrorism and a suicide bombing manual. | |
The defendants denied having extremist views and some said they were researching ideology and other matters. | |
Jihad 'fantasy' | |
Andrew Edis QC, prosecuting, said the propaganda had led Raja to try to get to a terrorist training camp in Pakistan. | |
Mr Edis said: "Irfan Raja was not as firm in his purpose as he hoped he would be, and as the people in Bradford hoped he would be. | |
"When he wrote the letter and went to Bradford, he was radicalised in his mind and intent on his course." | |
He said Raja's family - whom he described as "orthodox Muslims" - were "absolutely beside themselves with worry and fear" when they found out what he was planning. | |
Raja told police that the letter he left "was just him fantasising about jihad" and he "wanted them to worry because he was unhappy at home". | |
The other defendants - all first-term students - watched jihadi videos together, the court was told. | |
They were "a group of people radicalising each other and becoming more and more interested in that material", Mr Edis said. |