Teenager on trial for alleged terrorist offence aimed at Muslims in Bradford

The Telegraph and Argus reports on the trial of a teenager who has denied making a pipe bomb at his home in Bradford in order to attack Muslims in the area.

The 17-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is standing trial on charges of preparing for a terrorist act and an alternative offence of making a pipe bomb. He admitted in court that he had posted a message on his Snapchat account about his home-made bomb above an image of the Bradford skyline. The message on the picture read “Incendiary explosive and home-made black powder. More to come.” 

Prosecutor Barnaby Jameson, suggested the defendant had planned to attack a specific section of the population, saying the teenager had indicated “a particular group …shown here as somebody with a turban and a gun to their head.”

He went on to disclose that the teenager had been more direct in his choice of target having posted the message: “It’s time to enact retribution upon the Muslim filth.”

The teenager denied the suggestion he had intended to attack Muslims in Bradford, or elsewhere.

Defending the teenager, Rupert Bowers QC, asked whether he intended to attack people in Bradford, the teen answered “No”.

Bowers also asked if the teenager had planned to attack anywhere else, or if he intended to “attack some Muslims”, or if he carried out an internet search on ‘how to make a pipe bomb’ so he could “go and attack Muslims” – to all of which the boy answered “no”. 

The teen told the court he simply put the device made with powder from sparklers into a drawer from where it was later recovered.

Under cross-examination, the teenager admitted he had previously posted stickers from the far right neo-Nazi group, National Action, supporting a “white zone” in Bradford but he claimed not to regard the group as a “white supremacist organisation”.

He also accepted he had been photographed giving a Nazi salute and had posted the message “Hitler was Right” on his Twitter account.

He had also posted an image of Hitler with the number ‘1488’, which Jameson suggested represented the white supremacist slogan “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children” and ‘Heil Hitler’ (8 signifies the eighth letter in the alphabet, ‘H’).

The teenager had previously told police that National Action’s ideology most fitted his own and agreed that he held National Socialist views.

The trial continues.