June 18, 2008	Wednesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 13, 1429

LONDON, June 17: A former Heathrow worker — Samina Malik of Pakistani origin, who called herself the “lyrical terrorist” because of the ‘extremist’ poems she wrote — has won an appeal against her conviction.

Accused of collecting information likely to be useful for those preparing a terrorist act, she was found guilty at the Old Bailey in November of owning terrorist manuals.

The Court of Appeal has now quashed the conviction.

Ms Malik, 24, who was not in court, was given a nine-month prison sentence suspended for 18 months in December last year.

She became the first woman to be convicted under Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

The Court said: “We consider that there is a very real danger that the jury became confused and that the prosecution has rightly conceded that this conviction is unsafe.”

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it would not be seeking a retrial.

The head of the CPS’s counter terrorism division, said 21 documents the prosecution relied on in Ms Malik’s trial “would no longer be held capable of giving practical assistance to terrorists”.

“However, other documents in her possession, including the Al Qaeda Manual, the Terrorist’s Handbook, the Mujahideen Poisons Handbook and several military manuals, clearly retain that potential.

“We, therefore, have no doubt that it was right to bring this prosecution.”

But taking into account the time Ms Malik had spent on remand before her first trial and the likely non-custodial sentence she would receive upon conviction in a retrial meant the CPS had decided not to take the case to court again, she said.