weateallthepies.com

From The Times:

Hammaad Munshi, who was taking his GCSEs when he was arrested, was part of a cell of cyber-groomers which set out to brainwash the vulnerable to kill “non-believers”. He was convicted at Blackfriars Crown Court of making a record of material likely to be useful for terrorism over a guide to the manufacture of napalm.

For nearly a year the teenager, whose grandfather is a leading Islamic scholar, led a double life, the court heard. By day he attended lessons at the local comprehensive, and did as he was told. But in the evening, he spent hours surfing jihadist sites and distributing material to others as part of what the Crown branded a “worldwide conspiracy” to “wipe out” non-Muslims.

The court heard that that material contained included instructions about making napalm, other high explosives, detonators, and grenades, and “how to kill”.

Whilst the British media greedily salivates over the juicy headlines they can run, I know I’m not the only person sitting here thinking “What terrorist?”.

I’m not for a minute going to defend any beliefs Hammaad Munshi has or his intentions,of which I’m sure I would disagree with entirely. I disagree with lots of people but simply holding views is not and never should be a crime.

However he has effectively been given a custodial sentence for possessing information which anyone with an internet connection could easily obtain. I could type a recipe for napalm here, does that make me a terrorist? I read the Anarchist’s Cookbook when I was younger, am I a terrorist? I doodled a picture of someone I didn’t like being killed in an amusing way , am I a terrorist?

There is little doubt that this young man has been groomed by extremists and had the potential to commit a crime but we can’t start locking people up for crimes they might commit. What happened to innocent until proven guilty or have we all watched too much Minority Report?

Intervention at some sort of social services level surely would have been far more effective than locking up some teenager who’s mind has been poisoned at a very impressionable age.

But who cares about justice when we can feed the fearful masses a momentary bit of relief because we haven’t caught any real terrorists lately.