Man on terror charge gives evidence

A man who is standing trial on terrorism charges has told a court how he is “right wing” and “definitely anti Jewish”.

Connor Ward, 25, told a jury yesterday that he is also against “Jihadi” Islam and has “always had an interest in weaponry”.

The High Court in Edinburgh heard that Ward had also downloaded 19,000 documents about firearms and another 22,000 files on “sur- vivalist” techniques to his computer. The former psychiatric patient told jurors that he downloaded the documents after he started to believe the world was going to end on 21 December 2012.

He told defence advocate Drew Mckenzie that he was suffering from mental health problems at the time he started to believe the world was going to end.

He said: “I stockpiled weapons. I taught myself survival techniques.”

Ward, of Banff, Aberdeen- shire, was giving evidence on his own behalf during the fourth week of proceedings against him. He denies breaching both the Terrorism Act 2000 and Terrorism Act 2006 at two addresses in Banff, Aberdeenshire, between February 2011 and November 2014. It is alleged that he created and possessed a quantity of Neo Nazi, anti Muslim, ant Jewish and other “racist or violent texts, images, videos, flags, spoken word and music audio files.”

The trial continues.