‘Bedroom jihadi’ who tried to build pressure cooker bomb
A WOULD-be terrorist tried to build a bomb using a shrapnel-packed pressure cooker, with fairy lights as a detonator.
Zahid Hussain, who considered railway lines as targets, was ‘bedroom radicalised’ viewing hundreds of Islamic State-related images and videos of the war in Syria.
Birmingham Crown Court was told he wrongly believed his non-viable ‘bomb’was capable of causing devastation.
The 29-year-old, who was captured on CCTV clambering into a storm drain near a high-speed rail line, was arrested in August 2015 after being seen ‘patrolling’ the streets near his home in Naseby Road, Birmingham.
Jurors deliberated for two days before convicting Hussain of preparation of terrorist acts yesterday. Alternative counts of making explosives and one of attempting to make explosives were ordered to lie on the court file.
During the five-week trial, prosecution QC Annabel Darlow said the defendant also attempted to create a remote-control ‘initiator’ for a device.
She said the pressure cooker did not contain the correct ingredients to constitute an explosive device, but Hussain believed he had created a viable bomb.
The defendant was also found in possession of a number of books which contained instructions on sabotage and guerrilla warfare tactics.
Hussain, who watched the proceedings via a video-link from a psychiatric hospital, had denied engaging in conduct in preparation for committing an act of terrorism in the UK or assisting another to do so.
He will be sentenced on a date to be fixed.