Five students win terror appeal

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: BBC

The convictions of five young Muslim men jailed over extremist literature have been quashed by the Appeal Court.
...
A jury convicted the students in 2007 after hearing the men, of Bradford and Ilford, east London, became obsessed with jihadi websites and literature.
...
In one of the first trials of its kind, Irfan Raja, Awaab Iqbal, Aitzaz Zafar, Usman Malik and Akbar Butt were jailed by an Old Bailey judge for downloading and sharing extremist terrorism-related material. The men all received sentences of between two and three years.

But at the Court of Appeal, Lord Phillips said the men had clearly downloaded extremist material but he doubted if there was evidence to support the prosecution's case that this was in relation to planning terrorist acts.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7242724.stm

---

They seem to have been dreamers - they didn't do anything, or plan anything. The 'thought crime' phrase the defence used seems appropriate.