Student who downloaded Al Qaeda magazine 'didn't know what it would contain'

[Bangyai]

A university drop-out who downloaded an Al Qaeda magazine including bomb-making instructions 'didn't really know' what it would contain, the Old Bailey heard.

Hakan Ertarkan Photo: CENTRAL NEWS

By Telegraph reporters

10:15AM BST 15 Jun 2012
Hakan Ertarkan told jurors he wanted to learn about the terrorist group's views and 'interpretation of Islam' when he saved issue one of 'Inspire' to his sister's computer and then burned it to a CD.

The 21-year-old claimed he was meticulous about erasing his browsing history, using specialist software because he did not want his sister to see which websites he had been visiting.

Ertarkan said he became curious after hearing Al Qaeda had released a publication in English.

The former London Metropolitan University student, who holds a British passport but is of Turkish descent, said: "This was the first I'd heard of a magazine like this before, so I just thought, 'let's see what it's about'".

"It's part of a range of different sources that I had a look at."

Asked what he had expected its articles to be about, he replied: 'To be honest, I didn't really know.

"I just wanted information on their viewpoints, Jihad, and their interpretation of Islam. I just wanted to know what they have to say for themselves."
He added he opened the file once but only looked at the front cover and one article inside before copying it to a CD and then deleting the original.
"It's been my habit to just have things, literature, like that," he said.
"It doesn't necessarily mean that I've read every single book that I own."
Ertarkan claimed he used a 'proxy server', and then used specialist software to securely wipe the file from the computer, in order to stop his sister coming across records of the websites he had visited.
"I wouldn't have wanted her to be able to look at my internet browsing," he said.
Police forced entry to the family home he shares with his parents and sister in Edmonton, north London, in the early hours of January 26 last year.
Under his bed, officers found a CD containing a digital copy of issue one of Inspire, the official English-language magazine of Al-Qaeda, published in July 2010.
Further checks revealed the file, which included a guide on how to make pipe bombs, had been downloaded on a computer in his sister's bedroom on December 12, 2010, when she had been on holiday in Turkey.
Ertarkan, of Edmonton, north London, denies possessing a record of information likely to be useful to a terrorist.
The trial continues.

Student who downloaded Al Qaeda magazine 'didn't know what it would contain' - Telegraph

[Butterfly]

"I wouldn't have wanted her to be able to look at my internet browsing," he said.
Police forced entry to the family home he shares with his parents and sister in Edmonton, north London, in the early hours of January 26 last year.
Under his bed, officers found a CD containing a digital copy of issue one of Inspire, the official English-language magazine of Al-Qaeda, published in July 2010.

isn't freedom wonderful in the west and the UK in particular ?

[Bangyai]

Well .......its just one of those things. You know they're doing it ( monitering the net for key words etc ) but somehow, it seems a bit surreal and exaggerated.

So now I'm thinking ..... what if someone , somewhere changes the search words to ' creampie Thais '

Fook ..... I am so dead !

Mind you , looking at this blokes mug shot , he looks like he's been looking at anal fisting movies since they were first invented so why should I worry ?

[Smug Farang Bore]

Ya I know what he was up to!

Sitting in his sisters Room, knickers on head looking for burka porn...!

[dobella]

burka porn...!

Burkha porn, fuck me that is a new one, if someones into that maybe they should just put a balaclava on and....no i dont want to go there.

[9999]

Big deal...if I had access I'd be very interested to read an english translation of Al queada's magazine.

[hazz]

This is getting insane, but how can a country describe itself as free when someone faces prosecution simply for having this magazine and nothing else. The things we have given up for fear, fear of people who in the last 20 years have killed less people than britsh car drivers kill in a week.

God knows what they would think of me any my colleagues at university now a days. I would say that about 70% had prior experience in manufacturing and using explosives, 40% were still active. we all trained in manufacturing quite a number of class A/B drugs, safe manufacturing and handling of shock sensitive explosives amongst many other suspicious activities. But then these were the days when all we had to face was amateur terrorists like the IRA... so we got BSc's rather than criminal records.

Great Britan, what a sad f*cking place you have become

[Marmite the Dog]

Seeing as Al-Qaeda is a made up organisation from the American terrorist group the CIA, surely they should be on trial as well?

[dobella]

Seeing as Al-Qaeda is a made up organisation from the American terrorist group the CIA, surely they should be on trial as well?

So you consider the CIA terrorists then Marmite ?
Which side of the terror battle do you feel comfortable with then ?

[rawlins]

Reading is not illegal.

Here is a link to a download page for the Al-Qaida Inspire magazine if anybody is interested.

Al-Malahim: Inspire Magazine Issue 2 - Ansar Al-Mujahideen

[Butterfly]

Big deal...if I had access I'd be very interested to read an english translation of Al queada's magazine.

probably a CIA ops to catch terrorists

I wonder how much time it took those genius to put this brilliant plan together

[Hampsha]

Looks like a wolfman. These types of people usually end up in the US military anyways if they don't do some kind of school shooting before they graduate. Mostly the same type of people.

[Marmite the Dog]

Which side of the terror battle do you feel comfortable with then ?

Is that the imaginary war on terror that the US Government Terrorist Organisation made up?

[9999]

Is that the imaginary war on terror that the US Government Terrorist Organisation made up?

It's not imaginary is totally real, the strings a being pulled by beings residing in a higher dimension, like our latest troll OTB.

[CaptainNemo]

Yeah it is stupid, disgusting, and outrageous that downloading babble of the internet should lead to taxpayers funding a police investigation and court case and all the staff that go with it, over what is basically fuсk аll.

This whole concept of "information likely to be useful to a terrorist" is such a revolting idea, i mean practically anything is likely to be useful to a terrorist - like where to buy bargain zippo lighters, or how to set the time and date on your alarm clock, or what time does the next England match kick off... such a regressive pile of totalitarian hogshite. When are we going to be able to get rid of these cryptofascist bastards and build a bonfire of these laws and immigrants?!

Heaven forfend that university students in the developed world should "just want to know what they have to say for themselves."

On the other hand, he is a packy so, fuck it, send him on his way back to middle earth.

looking at this blokes mug shot , he looks like he's been looking at my anal fisting movies since they were first premiered so why should I worry ?

I'm sure he's a very satisfied customer

[Mr Gribbs]

The average British pleb is too occupied dealing with his own debt ridden ass and wanking off to the Queens jubilee to realize they are losing their rights. At least we don't hear those pompous plebs going on about how they are the freest and most unPC people in the world.