Man had bomb-making information on a phone app, court told

The jury in the trial of a civil engineer accused of posting ISIS videos on his Facebook page in a bid to encourage terrorism heardhowhehadasocialmedia applicationonhisphonewhich contained instructions on how to build bombs.

AbdulrahmanAlcharbati,31, of Noble Street, Sunderland, allegedly made 110 references to martyrdom and the terrorist organisation on his open social media profile and, in the space of a day last February, posted links to six extremist videos.

Newcastle Crown Court heard how the married dad had a copy of a manual titled ‘Easy Explosives, 4th edition’, on how to make improvised explosive devices, specifically suicide bomb vests, downloaded onto his mobile phone.

Dan Pawson-Pounds, prosecuting, told how Alcharbati was initially arrested on May 3 on suspicion of encouraging terrorism and disseminating terrorist publications in relation to material posted on his Facebook profile.

While he was at the police station,hishousewassearched and his phone was found by officers.Themobilewasanalysed and they discovered quantities ofIslamicextremistandbombmaking related material.

The court heard that when Alcharbati was arrested again on June 22 for possessing the document containing terrorist information his response was: “Are you serious?”.

Mr Pawson-Pounds told the jury how a social media application called ‘Telegram’ had been downloaded on the mobile phone. He said the defendant had joined ‘channels’ on the app which dealt with instructions on how to build bombs.

He said two videos on how to createexplosivematerialswere also discovered on the app.

Alcharbati denies six offences of dissemination of a terrorist publication and one of possessing a document containing terrorist information.