Security guard takes to stand at Blackburn terror trial (From Lancashire Telegraph)
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Security guard takes to stand at Blackburn terror trial
5:15pm Thursday 4th March 2010 in Blackburn
By Neil Docking, Reporter
COMBAT KIT: Ilyas Iqbal
A SECURITY guard who is accused of preparing for acts of terrorism became ‘mesmerised’ by the military after he watched the film Predator at the age of six, a court has heard.
Ilyas Iqbal, 23, of Percival Street, Blackburn, said he began researching military history and watching films such as Platoon as a child.
But the former Brookhouse Primary School and College of Islamic Guid-ance and Knowledge pupil, told Manchester Crown Court that he was opposed to terrorist action.
He claimed that he kept part of the newspaper article discovered in his home, which featured an extremist threatening more attacks, because the picture contained holy Muslim words.
He said he tore out the piece while at work at Express Gifts, Accrington, as it would have been thrown in the bin.
The court was shown footage of Iqbal wearing camouflage clothing while making a Vietnam war-style rat-trap in his back yard in Percival Street, with his co-defendant and brother, Abbas Iqbal, 24.
The defendant went on to explain to the jury how he wrote a document ‘Urban Combat’, detailing military tactics, to pass the time while working on a building site in 2006.
He said: “I was doing a 14-hour shift, there were about two channels on the TV, I was very bored with a long night ahead of me so I did what I do best, my favourtie past-time.
“I wrote down tactics I had seen from Hollywood movies.”
The military buff spelled out the names and types of weaponry and strategies shown in video clips from blockbusters such as Black Hawk Down and Saving Private Ryan, which were played in court.
He said: “Personally, I have no training in military planning or in the military as a whole. This was just my own notes of my hobby.”
Iqbal and co-defendants Abbas Iqbal, 24, also of Percival Street, and Muh-ammad Ali Ahmad, 26, of Whalley Range, are accused of preparing for acts of terrorism.
(Proceeding)
