Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Appeal upheld for youths "intoxicated by terror"

By Tom Chivers and agencies Last Updated: 5:05pm GMT 13/02/2008

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

Students win terror propaganda appeal
From left to right: Awaab Iqbal, Aitzaz Zafar, Usman Malik, Mohammed Irfan Raja and Akbar Butt

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 under section 57 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

Section 57 provides that "a person commits an offence if he possesses an article in circumstances which give rise to a reasonable suspicion that his possession is for a purpose connected with the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism".

Usman Malik's solicitor, Saghir Hussein, said: "This is a landmark judgment in a...

Full Story @ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/13/nterror213.xml

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