Terror suspect given prison on appeal

The court in The Hague convicted terror suspect Mohamed B. of preparing for a terrorist offense and sentenced him to one year in prison on Monday, ANP reports.

This is the appeal in this case. In September last year the court in Rotterdam acquitted him after his lawyer successfully argued that his client was not a radical jihadist, but rather a dreamer trying to impress women. He made boasts on Facebook not because he really wanted to execute an attack, but because he wanted to seem impressive.

The Rotterdam court also based its ruling on reports by behavioral scientists. These reports stated, among other things, that B. suffered from delusions of grandeur and liked to pretend he is someone else.

The Public Prosecutor appealed. "The huge deluge and scope of B.'s instant messages give no misapprehension of his intentions", the Prosecutor said.

The court in The Hague agreed with the prosecutor. According to the court, in 2014 B. deliberately searched Facebook for footage about making explosives and wrote down the recipe for a bomb in a notebook. The court is convinced that B. wanted to make a bomb and use it for an attack.