BRITISH INDIAN CONVICTED FOR BOMB-MAKING MANUAL
London, 27 September 2007 (IANS)

An Indian origin teenager, the son of an Afghan war veteran, has been found guilty of possessing a bomb-making manual. Abdul Patel, 18, was convicted Wednesday for possessing an item that could prove useful to terrorists. He was tried under Britain's Terrorism Act. Peter Wright, Queens Council (QC) for the prosecution, described the book as "a step-by-step guide to the manufacture and production of viable improvised explosive devices - homemade bombs."

Patel was arrested in August last year after police raided his house. During search the police came across a box marked "Don't Touch" and found the book, entitled EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal), which had been printed in the US in 1990 to teach federal agents how to defuse devices, Times Online reported. It included instructions on how to make explosives from fertiliser and ordinary household goods such as ammonia and iodine as well as information on the manufacture of letter bombs and simple fuses.

Wright said that Patel's fingerprints had been found on the book. He added: "Material such as this has a lasting utility, particularly in the hands of one as radicalised and motivated as this young man." When Patel was arrested his mobile phone allegedly had a picture of Osama bin Laden and the message "Kill Bush" on it.

The trial heard that his father, Mohammed Patel, had fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s and ran a charity shop that sent clothes and medical supplies to Chechnya and Bosnia. It was alleged that Patel helped out at the shop, which was known as a meeting place for Islamist extremists, but his defence team said he was no more than the 'tea boy'.

Patel clutched a copy of the Koran to his chest as the jury delivered its verdict at the end of the three-week trial. He will be sentenced on Oct 26 but the court acquitted him of the more serious charge of having the book for the purpose of committing a terrorist attack.