Students 'intoxicated' by terror freed on appeal

Five young men, including four students, jailed on terror charges after being "intoxicated" by extremist propaganda have been freed by the Court of Appeal.

Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips and two other judges ordered their release after quashing their convictions.

The men were convicted last year after an Old Bailey trial heard that they were obsessed with extremist websites and literature promoting violent jihad. Lord Phillips described the conviction as "unsafe". The trial, for downloading and sharing extremist terror-related material, was one of the first of its kind. The men said that their conviction was unique in British law, having been prosecuted for something they had read rather than something they had done, the BBC reports. Mohammed Irfan Raja, 20, Awaab Iqbal, 20, Aitzaz Zafar, 21, Usman Ahmed Malik, 22, and Akbar Butt, 21, faced charges of possessing extreme material on their computers.

Allowing their appeals, Lord Phillips, sitting with Mr Justice Owen and Mr Justice Bean, said: "We do not consider that it was made plain to the jury, whether by the prosecution or by the Recorder, that the case that the appellants had to face was that they possessed the extremist material for use in the future to incite the commission of terrorist acts.
"We doubt whether the evidence supported such a case."

Four of the men were students at Bradford University, while Mr Raja was a schoolboy in London at the time of his conviction.
He ran away from home in February 2006, leaving a note to his parents saying he was going to fight abroad and that they would be reunited in heaven, the court heard. However, he returned home within days, having realised his mistake.

He co-operated with detectives upon his return, leading to the arrest of the others and the discovery of the extremist material.
Among the literature discovered were publications from Islamist organisations encouraging Muslims to fight. Lawyers for the five said that the law had not been designed to prevent the dissemination of propaganda, but rather to stop people spreading bomb-making techniques.

None of the material suggested that the men were plotting a bombing, despite talk of travelling to Pakistan for paramilitary training.
Lord Phillips said: "The articles in question were documents, compact discs or computer hard drives on which material had been electronically stored.

"The material included ideological propaganda as well as communications between the appellants and others which the prosecution alleged showed a settled plan under which the appellants would travel to Pakistan to receive training and thereafter commit a terrorist act or acts in Afghanistan."
Joel Bennathan QC, for Mr Zafar, told the Court that his client had been convicted for reading. "The evidence at trial was that [Mr Zafar] made no attempt to conceal his very large collection of pro-jihadi sermons and lectures," said Mr Bennathan in his written arguments.

"His computer had no password, nor was any significant material encrypted or deleted."
The prosecution had used a "maverick" interpretation of the law to achieve a conviction, the appeal lawyers argued.
Lord Phillips said the "critical issue that arises on the facts of this case is whether there existed between the articles and the acts of terrorism a connection that satisfied the requirements of section 57".