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UK: Muslim convicted of “serious terrorist offences” walks free

Feb 9, 2010 3:36 pm By Robert Spencer

He is charging, predictably enough, “Islamophobia,” but the Crown Office says that “Mohammed Siddique remains convicted of serious terrorist offences.”

“Scottish ‘terrorist’ Mohammed Atif Siddique freed as verdict quashed,” by Charlene Sweeney for the Times Online, February 9 (thanks to all who sent this in):

A student described as Scotland’s first home-grown terrorist walked out of court a free man today after three senior judges overturned his most serious conviction.

Mohammed Atif Siddique, 24, a student from Alva, in Clackmannanshire, was released after prosecutors said during a hearing that lasted just a few minutes that they did not intend to seek a retrial….

In a statement read out by Mr Anwar, Mr Siddique suggested that he had been targeted because of his Islamic faith.

“Our law should bring to account those who plan acts of terror and not criminalise young Muslims for thought crime and the possession of propaganda,” he said.

“I have always maintained my innocence, but they took my liberty, destroyed my family’s reputation and labelled me a terrorist but I never had any bombs or plans to hurt anyone.

“In court it was said I was a wannabe suicide bomber, but I have always said I was simply looking for answers on the internet.”

Mr Siddique, a shopkeeper’s son, was the first person to be found guilty of Islamist terrorist charges in Scotland.

His trial in October 2007 was told that he sympathised with al-Qaeda and he wanted to be a suicide bomber. It also heard how he had frightened fellow students at Glasgow Metropolitan College by showing them images of beheadings being carried out by terrorists, and threatening to blow up the city.

After being found guilty of three terrorist charges and a breach of the peace, Mr Siddique was sentenced to a total of eight years in prison.

The majority of his sentence, six years, related to the most serious charge, which alleged that he possessed material that could be used for the “preparation, instigation or commission” of an act of terrorism.

During his appeal in July of last year, Donald Findlay, Mr Siddique’s barrister, argued that this material was no more than propaganda. He also repeated the student’s claims that he had simply been searching the internet out of curiosity.

At a hearing two weeks ago, judges said that Mr Siddique had been a victim of a miscarriage of justice, ruling that the original trial judge, Lord Carloway, had misdirected the jury. They deferred their decision until today to allow prosecutors to decide if they would seek a fresh conviction, but Derek Ogg, QC, the advocate depute, said they did not to intend to pursue this route, as Mr Siddique had already served most of his sentence relating to the main charge.

Mr Ogg also noted that he had served his sentence for the two lesser terrorism offences, which still stand.

Lord Osborne, sitting with Lords Reed and Clarke, said that they would quash the conviction and the associated sentence for the offence. They agreed to make it clear that Mr Siddique was free to leave the court.

The computing student was arrested in April 2006 as he waited to board a flight to Pakistan with his uncle. Material found on his laptop and during searches at his home included passages from the Koran, messages from al-Qaeda and praise for “martyrs” in Iraq.

In a statement, the Crown Office noted that the UK’s terror laws had developed since Mr Siddique’s trial in 2007 through judgments in English trials. It also said that as he had served most of his sentence for his main conviction a retrial would not be in the public interest.

However, it added: “Mohammed Siddique remains convicted of serious terrorist offences.”…

Uh, then should he really have been freed?

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