Neo-Nazi found guilty of mosque bomb plots

ITV News, The Daily Mail, Daily Mirror as well as local papers, Wirral Globe and Liverpool Echo, all report on a racist Neo-Nazi who has been convicted of planning to blow up mosques with home-made devices packed with nails and ball bearings.

Ian Forman, 42, expressed his racist attitudes to work colleagues at a glass recycling firm who later alerted the police after discovering he had been researching how to obtain dangerous chemicals on the internet during work hours.

Forman claimed to be researching how to make home-made fireworks but when officers raided his house in June last year they found more than a kilogram of gunpowder and a home-made explosive device in a briefcase hidden in his bedroom cupboard. Under his bed, he had stockpiled sulphur, potassium nitrate and charcoal in containers – the three components of gunpowder. In addition, the police found a replica Nazi SS uniform.

Upon arrest, he admitted in his interview with the police that he had extreme right wing views in his youth but claimed he no longer held such opinions.

Officers also later seized more incriminating evidence; an analysis of his computer and 16 mobile phones revealed video clips showing Forman experimenting with explosives, a shopping list with prices of bomb components following his research on the internet and research into mosques in his local area.

Kingston Crown Court heard that a list of targets found on his computer included the Penny Lane Mosque and the Wirral Islamic Centre. While local paper Liverpool Echo reports that Forman saved images of the two mosques as “target one” and “target two” respectively, The Daily Mail reports that Forman referred to a file he made containing a list mosques near his home in Merseyside as his “dreck ziel” – a German phrase meaning “dirt target”.

The defendant informed a friend by text that he was making an explosive with ball bearings and nails. He wrote: ‘It might be destined for the Muslim centre in Birkenhead.’

In another text, he said the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik was his ‘hero’, adding: ‘Time to start blowing them up.’

Police also found that he made an anti-Islam video on YouTube “Mosques lighting up the sky to keep us warm in the winter”. The Daily Mail reports that the racist video features pictures of people in Muslim dress and Forman also searched on Youtube for videos of ‘killing Muslims’.

Both the Daily Mail and Liverpool Echo note that Forman’s Facebook profile shows pictures of him on pilgrimage in 2012 to Hitler’s wartime headquarters in Germany.

Forman denied engaging in conduct in preparation of terrorist acts contrary to Terrorism Act 2006 but was found guilty.

According to Liverpool Echo, Judge Dodson said: “The defendant had, in my judgement, very extreme and evil thoughts – I think the word evil is appropriate.

“There will be a lengthy custodial sentence.

“But I must make sure… that it reflects your danger to the public, your hitherto good character, and that you did not in fact carry out these acts.”

He is due to be sentenced in the week commencing 28 April.