How soft of the Brits. They should change their laws.
It's obviously a war.



"'Beheading' poet wins conviction appeal : Print From correspondents in London
June 18, 2008 02:05am

A BRITISH woman who called herself the "lyrical terrorist" and wrote a poem about beheading a hostage, has won an appeal against a criminal conviction in London.

Samina Malik, 23, had been convicted last year of possessing documents useful to terrorists and was given a nine-month suspended sentence.

A former employee at a newspaper kiosk at Heathrow airport, she had written poetry which prosecutors said advocated violent extremism, and also downloaded Islamist literature from the Internet.

One of her poems, How to behead, was read out in court during her trial.

It contained a description in detail of how to slice off a hostage's head.

Her conviction spurred controversy, with human rights groups arguing she had been convicted of a "thought crime'' without having actually done anything dangerous.

The Court of Appeal today threw out her conviction under a ruling from February that concluded documents need to actually be helpful to a terrorist, rather than merely encouraging terrorism, for possession to count as a crime.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it would not seek a retrial after Malik's successful appeal.

"Since Ms Malik's conviction, the law has been clarified by the Court of Appeal. The result is that some of the 21 documents we relied on in Ms Malik's trial would no longer be held capable of giving practical assistance to terrorists,'' CPS head Sue Hemming said in a statement.

"However other documents in her possession, including The al-Qaeda Manual, The Terrorist's Handbook, The Mujahideen Poisons Handbook and several military manuals, clearly retain that potential. We therefore have no doubt that it was right to bring this prosecution,'' she said.

"Ms Malik was not prosecuted for her poetry. She was prosecuted for possessing documents that could provide practical assistance to terrorists,'' she said.

Ms Hemming also said Malik had provided information on airport security at Heathrow to a man who later pleaded guilty to a terrorism offence.

The Islamic Human Rights Commission said it welcomed Malik's court victory.

"This confirms our concerns over the anti-terror laws and (their) interpretation and implementation,'' said the commission's chairman Massoud Shadjareh. "


http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23882674-954,00.html

It sounds like it was all part of one conviction, and the whole lot was thrown out. They are not going to seek a retrial either.

You have to be very careful with this kind of law. A chemistry book, or a car maintenance manual, or a map would also be helpful to terrorists.

Some earlier posts about this case, from the ISLAM thread:

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1179362615

fruitcake weirdo

ha ha, serves the slutt right!

While I find her poems utterly distasteful and completely irresponsible I don't think she was inciting murder at alls. She wasn't calling for people to go and kill innocent people, but instead explained how to do the act.

I've seen lots of rap music which has included similar things about shooting cops and other gangsters, and that wasn't inciting murder either.

Inciting murder according to the law is where one encourages others to murder. Her poems, while completely irresponsible and definitely disgusting did not amount to incitement of murder.

That is why she wasn't convicted of incitement. Now in regards to owning military manuals and other manuals of poisons and bomb making, I certainly don't see how that could amount to a terrorist act. Amazon.com sells many books of this nature 'for educational purposes only' and have done so for many years. If however they could prove that she had the INTENT of using such materials for terrorism then that's another story. They couldn't and that is why the appeal was successful.

Many people who buy such manuals from amazon.com buy it because they are interested in the topic, I don't see a problem with that.. Because owning a book on something doesn't amount to actually having the intent to use that knowledge to kill innocent people.

In addition to that she looked at beheading videos online. While that is disgusting, it certainly isn't illegal. That is why they are freely available at places like www.liveleak.com etc.

Again, I don't support her poems, nor her behavior but I certainly don't think it amounts to the charges laid and am not surprised the appeal was successful.

On another funny note, I have seen a few instances recently where some bikies were caught with explosives, they were charged with weapons offenses only, that makes me wonder if a Muslim was caught with such explosives whether they would be charged with terrorism offenses?

I guess we need to define, what is terrorism?

Sprintcyclist wrote on Jun 21^st, 2008 at 11:24pm:

That is too a very good question Sprint. One would think that any unjust murder would bring terror into the hearts of the innocent.

How do you think we should define it?

Sprintcyclist wrote on Jun 22^nd, 2008 at 12:35am:

Please elaborate?

Sprintcyclist wrote on Jun 22^nd, 2008 at 1:45am:

Well you are the one saying that different sources motivate terrorism and that they have different goals.

What sources and goals are they?