A TikTok user with more than 27,000 followers has gone on trial accused of possessing a bomb-making video explaining how to make an improvised explosive previously used in terror attacks in the UK.
Jurors were told a photograph of Adam 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.
Mahmood, 20, of Platt Brook Way, Sheldon, Birmingham, denies a single count of possessing a recording likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism in April last year.
Opening the case against Mahmood at the city’s Crown Court, prosecutor Sahil Sinha said the defendant argues that he had “a reasonable excuse” to possess the video and did not know it contained information likely to be of use to a person preparing an act of terrorism.
Mr Sinha told jurors the case centred on a video file found on Mahmood’s phone after his arrest in April 2024, which also led to the discovery of several knives and two sharpeners in his bedroom.
The court heard the 14-minute video, which was not in English and had a translation at the bottom, was last accessed on March 24 last year, having been created via the Telegram app in October 2023.
The prosecutor told the trial the video provided “a detailed guide” to producing an explosive substance with a detonator and shrapnel to make a complete bomb.
Mr Sinha added: “An expert has assessed that the instructions are viable to make an improvised explosive device.”
The type of explosive had previously been used in terrorist attacks, Mr Sinha said, including in those in this country, and was “too unstable to have viable commercial use”.
To prove the case against Mahmood, Mr Sinha said, the Crown must satisfy jurors that the video contained information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism – which involved “the use of threat of action that involves serious violence, serious damage, endangerment of life, serious risk to health and safety, or perhaps serious disruption to an important electronic system”.
Mr Sinha told the jury: “What we are not talking about is every-day documents like timetables or maps.
“This is an offence designed to catch information of use to terrorists as opposed to ordinary people.
“It is not necessary for the prosecution to prove that the defendant himself is a terrorist or was himself planning an act of terrorism. The question for you is whether this video would be of a kind likely to be useful to someone that was.”
The court heard Mahmood asked another TikTok user to send him the bomb-making video and received it via Telegram, sending a message of thanks soon afterwards.
Mr Sinha said: “Not only did the defendant know he had received this video, he had specifically sought it out.”
Jurors were told that as well as the bomb-making video, filmed in a kitchen by a man wearing camouflage gear, another TikTok video found on Mahmood’s phone detailed “How Hamas rockets are made”.
During police interviews on April 3 and 4 2024, the court heard, Mahmood agreed that the weapons found at his address were his but claimed they were linked to an interest in a Turkish TV drama about the Ottoman empire.
He also denied keeping any material for any terrorist purpose.
The trial continues.
