Prosecutor Urges Jury To Convict Aberdeen Medical Student On Terrorism Charges
A prosecutor today urged a jury to convict medical student Yousif Badri of terrorism charges.
Advocate depute Richard Goddard was giving his closing speech at the trial of Yousif Badri, 29, who denies two terrorism charges.
Mr Goddard told jurors at the High Court of Glasgow: "The right thing to do is return guilty verdicts on the two charges."
Badri, a final year medical student from Aberdeen University, is accused of downloading materials which would be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.
He is also charged with possessing images and footage of terrorists training and making bombs and manufacturing other weapons with the intention of committing acts of terrorism or in preparation for such acts.
The offences are alleged to have been committed April 2006 and June 2013.
Mr Goddard told the jury: "Don't judge a book by its cover might be an appropriate phrase in this case. You might think.
"Mr Badri is a young man with close family and a wide circle of friends, yet not one of them knew of his activities in taking out and accessing this material.
"That was part of his life he kept as a closed book from everyone. For a number of years he kept it a secret.
"It is an offence to collect and make a record of information which is likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism. There is no need for the Crown to demonstrate that Mr Badri had any intention to commit acts of terrorism."
Badri has claimed in evidence that he carrying out research so that he could refute the terrorist viewpoint and show how they twisted verses from the Koran to their own ends.
Mr Goddard added: "If you were doing this for the best of intentions what's the big secret. For years he was collecting and viewing items some of which had quite appalling images. You would expect him to bring up in conversation about what he was viewing, but he didn't."
Defence QC Murdo Macleod will give his speech tomorrow.