November 09, 2007	Friday	Shawwal 27, 1428

LONDON: A woman who called herself the ‘Lyrical Terrorist’ was convicted in Britain on Thursday of possessing records likely to be useful for terrorism. Samina Malik, 23, who worked at a news stand at Heathrow Airport, had denied the charge and said she called herself the ‘Lyrical Terrorist’ only because she thought it was a cool name.

Her sentencing was set for Dec 6, and she was released on bail under conditions that Judge Peter Beaumont described as house arrest.

“You have been in many respects a complete enigma to me,” Beaumont told her.

Ms Malik, who was arrested in October, wrote poems including “How to Behead” and “The Living Martyrs” and had a collection of documents useful to terrorists, prosecutors said.

She allegedly wrote on the back of a store receipt: “The desire within me increases every day to go for martyrdom.”

“She is a committed Islamic extremist, who supports terrorism and terrorists. She had a library of material that she had collected for terrorist purposes. That collection would be extremely useful for someone planning terrorist activity,” prosecutor Jonathan Sharp had told the jury. A jury convicted Ms Malik of the charge by 10-1.

Police said one of her poems included the line: “Let us make Jihad/ Move to the front line/ To chop chop head of kuffar swine.”

Another poem, titled “How to Behead,” said “It’s not as messy or as hard as some may think/ It’s all about the flow of the wrist,” it read. Police said her computer held copies of “The Mujaheddin Poisoner’s Handbook,” “Encyclopaedia Jihad,” “How to Win in Hand to Hand Combat,” “How to Make Bombs” and “Sniper Manual.”

Ms Malik joined an extremist organisation called Jihad Way, set up to spread terrorist propaganda and support for Al Qaeda, prosecutors said.—AP