Jurors have begun deliberating over their verdicts in the murder trial of an alleged Islamic State fanatic accused of killing a respected imam in Greater Manchester.
Mohammed Syeedy, 21, has been charged with the murder or manslaughter of Jalal Uddin, 71, an Islamic scholar in Rochdale.
The prosecution allege that Syeedy and his alleged accomplice, Mohammed Abdul Kadir, 24, murdered Uddin because he practised a form of Islamic spiritual healing.
Uddin used healing amulets, known as taweez, as part of an ancient Islamic ritual designed to cure people of ill health and ward off evil spirits.
Paul Greaney QC, prosecuting, told jurors that Syeedy and Kadir were Isis supporters who believed Uddin practiced “black magic” and deserved the ultimate punishment.
The former imam was bludgeoned to death with a hammer as he walked through a children’s playground on his way home from a mosque on 18 February.
It is alleged that Syeedy and Kadir stalked Uddin through the streets of Rochdale before Kadir launched the brutal attack, which left the 71-year-old with fatal skull fractures.
The jury at Manchester crown court has been told that Kadir fled to Istanbul in Turkey three days after the attack and is on the run from counter-terrorism police.
The prosecution alleges that Syeedy and his friends, who are not on trial, surveilled Uddin for 18 months after learning he practised taweez.
They initially planned to get the Bangladeshi scholar deported, the court has heard, but that tactic later took a sinister turn.
Syeedy, a former Manchester United steward, denies murder and manslaughter. The electrical engineering student insists he did not know that Kadir planned to attack Uddin.
Syeedy has told jurors that he followed Uddin in his car, with Kadir in the passenger seat, so that his alleged accomplice could get a taweez from him.
The 21-year-old, from Rochdale, also denied supporting Isis and described the terrorist group’s actions as “completely wrong”.
