'Lyrical terrorist' wins appeal against jail
LONDON (AFP) — A 24-year-old who called herself the "Lyrical Terrorist" won her appeal in London in Tuesday against conviction for collecting information which could help plan a terror attack.
Samina Malik, a former shop assistant at Heathrow airport who penned poems with titles including "How to behead," became the first woman convicted under Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 last December.
Malik, who said she only used the terrorist nickname because it sounded "cool," was given a nine-month jail term suspended for 18 months after prosecutors called her a "committed Islamic extremist".
But on Tuesday, the Court of Appeal quashed the ruling after prosecutors conceded the conviction was unsafe.
"We consider that there is a very real danger that the jury became confused and that the prosecution have rightly conceded that this conviction is unsafe," said judge Nicholas Phillips.
Her trial heard how Malik wrote verse on spare cash till receipts. Her poem "How to behead" contained the line: "It's not as messy or as hard as some may think/It's all about the flow of the wrist."
The Crown Prosecution Service said it would not seek a retrial, after the appeal courts ruled that 21 documents used to support the prosecution should not have been deemed capable of giving practical assistance to terrorists.
But CPS official Sue Hemming said other documents in Malik's possession, "including the Al-Qaeda Manual, the Terrorist's Handbook, the Mujahideen Poisons Handbook and several military manuals, clearly retain that potential".
"Ms. Malik was not prosecuted for her poetry," she said.
"She was prosecuted for possessing documents that could provide practical assistance to terrorists," she said, adding: "We therefore have no doubt that it was right to bring this prosecution."
