Five British Muslims convicted of terror charges are freed

FIVE young British Muslims who were convicted of terror charges have walked free today.

The five downloaded extremist material The five downloaded extremist material

The students, who were jailed last year for downloading extremist propaganda, were freed by the Court of Appeal this afternoon.

They had been described by the Old Bailey judge who sentenced them as being "intoxicated" by jihad websites and literature.

But today Chief Justice Lord Phillips quashed their convictions and ordered their release, saying the convictions were unsafe as there was no proof of terrorist intent.

Mohammed Irfan Raja, Awaab Iqbal, Aitzaz Zafar, Usman Ahmed Malik, and Akbar Butt will now escape jail sentences of between two and three years.

Their lawyers argued that the men had been convicted of "thought crime".

Lord Phillips said: "Difficult questions of interpretation have been raised in this case by the attempt by the prosecution to use [this law] for a purpose for which it was not intended."

During the previous trial the Old Bailey had heard that the men, from Bradford and Ilford, east London, were planning to go to Pakistan for training before going to fight jihad.

The court was told they had been found downloading and sharing extreme material on their computers.

Four of them, Bradford University students, were arrested after London Muslim schoolboy Mohammed Irfan Raja ran away from home in February 2006.

The Old Bailey had heard that Raja had left a note for his parents saying he was going to fight abroad and they would meet again in heaven.

The prosecution said they were all planning to go to Pakistan for training before going to fight jihad.

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