9 Feb 2010

Scottish Student to be freed after terror conviction quashed

A student accused of being a "wannabe suicide bomber" will be freed early from prison after prosecutors in Scotland decided not to seek his retrial for plotting terrorist attacks.

Mohammed Atif Siddique, 24, from Alva near Stirling, is expected to be released today after the crown office said it would not oppose an appeal court's ruling that he was the victim of a miscarriage of justice after being wrongly convicted of preparing to commit or instigate Islamist terror attacks.

Mohammed-Atif-Siddique

The shopkeeper's son was jailed for eight years in October 2007 for a string of terrorism offences after he was found guilty of downloading Islamist documents on weaponry, explosives and beheadings and then circulating them again on the internet.

He was also convicted for causing a breach of the peace at Glasgow Metropolitan college by threatening to become a suicide bomber and claiming to be an al-Qaida member, and showing images of suicide bombers and beheadings.

But last month, the appeal court judge Lord Osborne said he had been wrongly convicted of the most serious charge that there was a "reasonable suspicion" these documents were being held for the "commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism".

Guardian.co.uk