Isis ‘IT chief ’ who plotted massacre at country show
AN ILLEGAL immigrant who supported a network of jihadis from his flat boasted of planning an atrocity targeting a county show with thousands of visitors.
Rabar Mala, 32, was refused permission to remain in Britain but stayed under the radar for years by using the name of a brother and working as a car valeter.
But when he wasn’t at work, the Iraqi Kurd was using his one-bedroom flat in Cheshire to run what was effectively Islamic State’s ‘IT department’ using a messaging site popular with Islamists.
He also claimed to have tickets for the Royal Cheshire County Show, whose past presidents have included Princess Anne and the Countess of Wessex, to mount an attack using ‘people and weapons’.
A police raid found he had activated hundreds of mobile phone SIM cards to allow jihadists in Iraq and Syria to use the Telegram app, uncovering 1.8million messages in four languages.
As Mala was jailed yesterday for eight years, police said the case showed how the refusal of some social media companies to share their data with the authorities puts the public at risk.
‘I would say Mala was as dangerous as the IS fighter with a Kalashnikov or rocket launcher, because he was providing them with a vital tool in their armoury,’ said Detective Superintendent Will Chatterton, of the North West Counter Terrorism Unit. He said it would ‘make my officers’ job a lot easier’ if companies such as Telegram cooperated with police.
Mala had applied for the right to stay in Britain in 2008 but was turned down. He avoided deportation by using the name of a brother who had left the UK, and worked for a Ford dealership in Warrington. Under the online alias Zak Kurdy, he used old-style phones to register SIM cards and then switch them to his smartphone to activate them. Terrorists would contact Mala who would allocate them a phone number from one of his SIM cards, enabling them to register an account on Telegram. Crucially, the exchange and the resulting account were both anonymous.
Mala had activated a total of 360 cards since January 2016. They were found hidden in a cupboard with a false back when police carried out a dawn raid on his flat on August 20 last year.
Among messages retrieved by police were threats by Mala to attack the Royal Cheshire County Show, which attracts almost 100,000 people every June. ‘It’s the biggest show,’ he wrote last June. ‘About half a million will attend... cars of every type, lorries, trailers, horses and owners.’
He referred to a machine gun and said the operation would ‘start tomorrow’. He added: ‘I’m here as a representative abroad.’
He was sent a response that said: ‘A seeker of martyrdom is good.’
Mala added: ‘I have about seven tickets. It only needs people and weapons. It will be an end for Crusaders.’ He also celebrated the Manchester bombing in May last year, telling one of his contacts: ‘May Allah direct their shooting.’ Security chiefs fear that other terrorists are fulfilling a similar role around the world.
But the probe was hampered by the fact that Telegram, a Dubaibased company founded by Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov, does not share information with law enforcement agencies.
Mala, who also used the name Colin, pleaded guilty to two counts of using possessions and properties for terrorist purposes when he appeared at Manchester Crown Court. Jailing him, Judge Patrick Field said: ‘These were the deliberate and repeated acts of a determined adherent to the IS creed.’