A Birmingham University PhD student has been found guilty of using a 3D printer at home to build a “kamikaze” drone designed to deliver an explosive warhead or chemical weapon for Islamic State (IS) terrorists.
Mechanical engineering graduate Mohamad al-Bared, 27, was found guilty of using a 3D printer to make the drone at his Coventry home while sending weekly updates to IS.
After a five-week trial at Birmingham crown court, he was convicted of a single count of engaging in conduct in preparation of terrorist acts to benefit a proscribed terrorist organisation.
Bared was remanded in custody and told he could face a life term when he is sentenced on 27 November.
He denied being a supporter of IS or its aims, and told jurors he had made the drone for his own research purposes.
Bared, who was studying at the University of Birmingham and previously studied at Coventry and Warwick universities, also claimed to have only researched IS online to argue against its aims with others at a mosque.
Prosecutors said it was clear from encrypted online chats and other digital material that he supported IS, intended to make a “single-use” video-transmitting drone for terrorist purposes, and to travel to Africa via Turkey.
The UAV was found in a bedroom during a raid on the Coventry home Bared shared with his parents in January this year, and he was arrested while driving at the same time as the raid took place.
Prosecutor Michelle Heeley KC told the court that the drone “was being manufactured to deliver a bomb … to fly into IS enemy territory and deliver a chemical weapon or some other kind of device”.
Heeley also said Bared, who was seen as a “mild-mannered academic” by friends, had filled in an IS application form and set up a UK-registered company to help plans for future foreign travel.
She said evidence showed he had researched chemicals including sarin, ricin and mustard gas, and material on an electronic device included references to fuses, mechanical detonators and an “explosive” head.
“What drone for legitimate use needs an explosive head?,” she said.
Bared’s barrister, Alistair Webster KC, claimed his client had studied IS-linked material, including video of beheadings, because he wanted to “debate” against the terror group’s views.
“He accepts that he is fascinated by Islamic State and its mindset, but rather than supporting it he wanted to argue against it, in the mosque, online,” he said.
DCS Mark Payne, the commander of the West Midlands counter-terrorism unit, said Bared “clearly had a terrorist mindset”.
“It is our clear view that this man was very, very dangerous, that he was building something that was a weapon to be used to deliver chemicals to cause harm to people who didn’t share his extremist views,” he said.