Terrorism accused: I was only pretending
Man denies plan to torch mosque
A MAN accused of planning a terrorist attack told police he was only “pretending” he was going to burn down a mosque while drunk.
Sam Imrie, 24, is charged with preparing to commit acts of terrorism and suggesting online that he planned to attack the Fife Islamic Centre.
A tape of detectives interviewing Imrie was played to the jury at the High Court in Edinburgh yesterday.
The officers referred to footage Imrie posted of the centre in Glenrothes on instant messaging service Telegram and asked why he was there.
Imrie answered: “To pretend I was going to burn it down.”
A detective asked if Imrie intended to set the building ablaze and the accused replied: “No. Pretending I was.”
Imrie admitted he started a fire at the “main entrance” of an abandoned building after he “poured petrol on it”.
He told officers during the interview, recorded in the presence of an appropriate adult, that he’d been “wasted” at the time having drunk beer and Mad Dog 20/20.
The officers brought up Imrie’s Telegram post saying he wanted “Sturgeon to die”, asking him: “Do you want to kill Nicola Sturgeon?”
Imrie replied: “No. I just don’t want the SNP to be the most popular party.”
Earlier, a detective asked him: “Do you see yourself as a white nationalist?” Imrie replied: “Yeah.” He was then asked if he “wishes harm on people of colour” and answered “no”.
Imrie said he’d been posting on a Telegram channel called Fashwaveartists while at the Fife Islamic Centre.
The detectives asked if it was “anything to do with fascism” and he said “yes.”
Imrie admitted expressing “anti-Muslim views” and that he had “quite a lot of knives”.
But he later told the police he “didn’t hate anybody”, was expressing far-right views on Telegram to be “edgy” and was drawn to the Nazis for their “aesthetic”. Earlier, the court was shown a “video comparison” of footage filmed by Imrie and the Christchurch mosque mass shooter.
The jury was told how terrorist Brenton Tarrant live-streamed himself carrying out the 2019 massacres in New Zealand.
Detective Constable Murray Cairns, who was with Police Scotland’s counterterrorism unit when Imrie was arrested, said three copies of the video were on the accused’s iPhone. The court was shown six minutes and 29 seconds of “first person” footage streamed by Tarrant as he drove towards a mosque with a car full of guns.
Prosecutor Lisa Gillespie QC then asked for a “video comparison” to be played of a clip recorded by Imrie in his Ford Fiesta after going to the Fife Islamic Centre.
Asked about similarities, DC Cairns said it was “similar bodycam-type” video.
The jury was then shown both videos at the same time. Defence lawyer Jim Keegan QC, crossexamining, said the witness had been asked to compare a person on their way to set a fire in a “dilapidated building somewhere in Fife” and someone “committing an atrocity of unmentionable quantity”.
Imrie denies all nine charges against him, including an allegation that he posted statements suggesting he was going to carry out an attack on the Fife Islamic Centre.
The trial continues.