TERROR TRIAL TOLD OF WAR TACTICS FILES
Suspect ‘had military info on computer’
A MAN accused of terrorism offences downloaded documents on military techniques and firearms, a court heard yesterday.
About 22,000 manuals on armed forces tactics were discovered on computer equipment belonging to Connor Ward, 25, it was claimed.
Forensic computing expert James Borwick, 53, told the High Court in Edinburgh he also found documents relating to firearms. He was giving evidence on the fourth day of Ward’s trial.
Ward, from Banff, who is now a prisoner at HMP Grampian, denies two charges of breaching the Terrorism Act 2000 and the Terrorism Act 2006.
The court had earlier heard that in July 2016 police asked Borwick to examine a USB stick and a computer registered to a man called Connor Ward.
The jury were shown records of the material found on the equipment, including 1900 manuals on firearms. One was called “AK47 Assault Rifle Operator Manual”.
It is alleged that between February 26, 2011, and November 21, 2014, Ward “did with the intention of committing acts of terrorism, engage in conduct in preparation of said acts”.
The charges state that he possessed a quantity of neo-Nazi, anti-Muslim, anti-Jewish and other “racist or violent texts, images, videos, flags, spoken word and music audio files”.
It is also claimed that he had texts including instructions for the manufacture of “explosive materials and improvised explosive devices” as well as chemical and biological poisons.
Ward also allegedly possessed a quantity of knives, metal bars, knuckledusters, batons and “survival tools”.
The second charge alleges that between the same dates Ward did “collect or make a record of information of a kind likely be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism”.
The jury have already been told that among the files Borwick found on Ward’s computer equipment was a map of Aberdeen mosques.
The trial continues.