A prosecutor today claimed terror accused Yousif Badri had been keeping a “big secret” on a large part of his life.
Advocate depute Richard Goddard told a jury the right thing to do would be to find the 29-year-old guilty of two terrorism charges.
Medical student Badri 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 between April 2006 and June 2013 at Badri’s flat in Ashgrove Road, Aberdeen and the nearby Berryden Retail Park as well as his current address in West Halifax, Yorkshire.
The court has heard that Badri downloaded material which included American soldiers being shot by snipers, weapons being made, the Al Qaeda training manual and 10 copies of the Al Qaeda propaganda magazine Inspire.
In his closing speech at the High Court of Glasgow yesterday, Mr Goddard told the jury: “The right thing to do is return guilty verdicts on the two charges.
“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.”
Referring to Inspire magazine Mr Goddard said: “This magazine has step-by-step instructions on how to build a pressure cooker bomb. The magazine shows how to become a terrorist.
“Yousif Badri doesn’t just have one copy, or even one or two. In his collection he has all the copies that were published at the time of his arrest. Inspire 10 even gives a list of potential terrorist targets.”
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.
But Mr Goddard told the jury: “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 today.