Defendant tells jury he didn’t pay much attention to ‘rubbish’ bomb-making video

A terror trial suspect accused of possessing an instructional bomb-making video has claimed he skipped over parts of the film and “didn’t really think anything of it”.

Adam Mahmood, who had more than 27,000 followers on TikTok, told Birmingham Crown Court he asked for the video to be sent to him by another social media user via the Telegram messaging app in October 2023.

Mahmood, 20, of Platt Brook Way, Sheldon, denies a single count of having a recording likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.

Jurors have been told a photograph of Mahmood associated with his social media account showed him wearing a balaclava with various weapons, including a bow and arrow, an axe and a sword, while weapons including several knives were found in his bedroom.

Giving evidence from the witness box on Tuesday, Mahmood told jurors he had not watched parts of the video, which the Crown claims provides a detailed guide to producing an explosive substance with a detonator and shrapnel to make a complete bomb.

He told the court he originally asked to be sent the video after seeing a “fast-forwarded clip” posted by another social media account, which invited anyone who wanted it to send a direct message.

“I didn’t understand what was going on in the video,” Mahmood told the court. “I was very intrigued and curious as to what the video was about.

“He (a masked man giving instructions on bomb-making) was doing something in the clip that I was curious about. It was very fast.”

The court has heard Mahmood asked for the video, lasting 14 minutes, to be sent to his Instagram account and eventually downloaded it to his phone from a Telegram message sent by someone using the name “Slave of Allah”.

Denying he is or was a supporter of Isis or the so-called Islamic State, Mahmood said: “When I first clicked on the video I saw the introduction.

“I fast-forwarded it a bit.

“I wanted to get straight into what he (the man in the video) was doing on the TikTok clip. I had no clue what he was doing.”

The defendant, a former motor mechanics student who was on universal credit when he was arrested, told the court he had failed his school exams except for a grade 4 in GCSE maths and English.

“It was going over my head as a person who failed science,” he said of the video. “I had no clue what he was saying.”

Questioned about a part of the video in which the man, who appeared in a kitchen wearing camouflage gear, said he was going to make a bomb, Mahmood said: “I skipped the introduction.

“I didn’t really think anything of it – I thought it was just a rubbish video.

“I didn’t pay much attention to it.

“If I knew it was that video I would have deleted it immediately, which is why it was still on there.”

Prosecutor Sahil Sinha told the start of the trial on Monday that the video, with English subtitles, had been assessed by an expert who judged that its instructions were “viable to make an improvised explosive device”.

The trial continues on Thursday.