Jailed for life, Islamic State nail bomber radicalised on YouTube
AN Islamic State fanatic who built a nail bomb with fairy lights and a pressure cooker after becoming ‘bedroom-radicalised’ by YouTube videos was jailed for life yesterday.
Zahid Hussain, 29, was planning to set off the bomb on the Birmingham to London rail line.
The former nightclub doorman, who has paranoid schizophrenia, was caught in 2015 after being seen on CCTV crawling into a storm drain that leads to a passage under the train track.
Ordering the terrorist to serve a minimum of 15 years, Mr Justice Sweeney said: ‘More than one explosion was clearly intended and the harm intended to be caused was ultimately loss of life or serious injury.’
After Hussain’s arrest in August 2015, police uncovered evidence he had carried out reconnaissance of the West Coast Main Line near his parents’ house in Alum Rock, Birmingham, where he lived.
Books on guerrilla warfare were also discovered at the house, including one describing mounting attacks on railways.
He was arrested after being spotted ‘patrolling’ streets near the family home. He was carrying a knife and bomb-making instructions.
Bottles of hydrogen peroxide, a hotplate, and a can of diesel were also found in his bedroom, along with 2,000 terror images.
He had bookmarks on his computer for extremist websites and Twitter feeds, and was found to have visited a streaming service described as an IS version of YouTube 1,851 times.
After his arrest, Hussain told police he had become ‘bedroom radicalised’ after watching battle scenes on YouTube. He claimed he only supported the ‘moderate’ opposition in Syria.
One of Hussain’s contacts on Twitter and Kik Messenger – an anonymous messaging app – was fellow Birmingham man Junaid Hussain, who fled to Syria to join IS.
Junaid Hussain, 21, also known as Abu Hussain al-Britani, was killed in a US drone strike in August 2015, two months after being caught in a newspaper sting explaining how to make a pressure cooker bomb over the internet.
Prosecutor Annabel Darlow QC said Zahid Hussain had attempted to create a remotecontrol detonator with a wireless doorbell, and had successfully manufactured four igniters from fairy lights.
The device contained shrapnel weighing 1.6kg (3lb 8oz), including 166 nails, 172 screws, 11 components from a socket set and 28 other metal objects.
Hussain was diagnosed with treatment-resistant paranoid schizophrenia but was judged fit to stand trial.
Dr Philip Joseph, a consultant psychiatrist instructed by the prosecution, said he believed the psychosis was ‘probably connected to his heavy use of cannabis’.
At Hussain’s trial at Birmingham Crown Court this spring, jurors were told a mistake in the chemical formulation of his device stopped it being viable – but he believed the bomb would have worked.
He denied preparation of terrorist acts but was found guilty in May. Yesterday Hussain declined to appear for sentencing via a video link to the secure psychiatric hospital where he is being held.
Only recently has the Ministry of Justice allowed prisoners to be sentenced via video.
The judge, carrying out sentencing at Winchester Crown Court, said: ‘Conduct threatening the democratic government and security of the state has a seriousness all of its own. In your case, your culpability is extremely high.’
He said that Hussain had been using the bedroom in his parents’ house as a ‘base of operations and improvised laboratory’. The judge said had his device been viable, it would have been capable of causing a ‘significant explosion’.
He added: ‘If detonated in a crowded area it would have been potentially fatal to those within metres of it and would have potentially caused serious injury among those up to ten metres away.’
The judge said the sentence was ‘appropriate’ in view of ‘the level of the danger that you pose, and the impossibility of predicting when it will come to an end’.
‘Significant explosion’