Two Muslims accused of plotting an Islamic State-inspired Remembrance Day beheading walked free from court today after being cleared of terrorist offences.
Yousaf Syed, 20 and Haseeb Hamayoon, 29, shared gruesome pictures of Westerners being murdered by IS fighters and joked about joining the extremist regime in a stream of WhatsApp messages uncovered by anti-terror police.
They told the Old Bailey although they were embarrassed about the conversations, they had no plans to engage in a real terrorist plot.
Both men stood trial late last year but a jury failed to reach a verdict. At the retrial, Syed was found not guilty and the jury again failed to reach a verdict on Hamayoon.
Mr Justice Saunders lifted reporting restrictions on the case when prosecutors said they would not seek to try Saudi-born Hamayoon a third time.
Syed’s cousin, Nadir, 23, was found guilty at the original trial and will now be sentenced next Thursday for planning an attack to emulate the brutal murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby.
The British-born extremist, from Hounslow, used the PIN number ‘77911’ on his phone – a reference to the 7/7 London bombings in 2005 and the 9/11 attack on the twin towers in New York in 2001 – and was filmed stamping on a poppy in the street.
He had bought an 11-inch kitchen knife in preparation for the attack, and was arrested just days before the annual Remembrance Day commemorations in 2014.
Prosecutor Max Hill QC told the court the plot was inspired by a fatwa from IS leader Abu Muhammad al-Adnani calling for followers to carry out attacks in their home countries rather than travelling to Iraq and Syria to fight and "to kill civilians everywhere in the West”.
Hamayoon, of Tudor Road, Hayes, and Yousaf Syed, of West Wycombe Road, High Wycombe, both denied preparing an act of terrorism.
Nadir Syed will be sentenced on Thursday 23.
