Is it safe to download al Qaeda manuals yet?
[Quote:]
Is the “al-Qaeda manual” still an easy get into jail card? The UK Court of Appeal yesterday quashed the conviction of Samina Malik, aka the “Lyrical Terrorist”, for possession of information useful for terrorist purposes under Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000, but the Crown Prosecution Service still views this and other widely circulated documents as prima facie evidence of wicked intent.
So the jury’s still out, as it were. The Court of Appeal ruled in Malik’s favour because it felt there was “a very real danger that the jury became confused”, and that her conviction was therefore unsafe. The prosecution conceded this, but Sue Hemming of the CPS counter-terrorism division said that although some of the 21 documents that had been used in Malik’s trial could no longer be seen as giving practical assistance to terrorists, “other documents in her possession, including the al Qaeda Manual, the Terrorist’s Handbook, the Mujahideen Poisons Handbook and several military manuals, clearly retain that potential.”
Hemmings added that Malik had already spent time on remand and would be likely to receive a non-custodial sentence if a further trial were pursued, and said that the CPS had therefore decided not to seek a retrial. Which you might well take to mean ’she’s guilty as hell, but we’re not going to bother with her, so there.’
Section 58 covers the collection or holding of information likely to be useful for terrorism, but doesn’t require any specific terrorist intent, and is therefore particularly useful for sweeping up small fry, wingnuts and thought criminals. The three documents referred to by Hemmings are all widely distributed on the Internet (sometimes, indeed, by the US Department of Justice), and have been used frequently in UK terrorist prosecutions.