https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...ise-terrorist-just-followers-trial-hears.html
A suspected Islamist encouraged people to cut off the heads of blasphemers and retweeted praise for a terrorist ‘just to have some more followers’, a terror trial has heard.
Ajmal Shahpal, appearing at Birmingham Crown Court on Monday, claimed he did not believe that the killer of French school teacher Samuel Paty was ‘as brave as a lion’ or that the victim ‘deserved to be killed’ in France in October 2020.
Prosecutors allege that Shahpal, of Birkin Avenue, Nottingham, encouraged others to commit acts of terrorism through his social media coverage, including one retweet containing an image of Mr Paty’s severed head….
Under cross-examination from prosecutor Dan Pawson-Pounds, Shahpal, who is originally from Pakistan and was assisted by an Urdu interpreter, denied pretending to have a poor understanding of English to try to escape responsibility for his tweets.
Mr Pawson-Pounds told Shahpal, who passed a taxi exam and studied for a diploma in English and business management after coming to the UK in 2009: ‘The Crown suggests that you were a radicalised follower of extreme Islam and that you both supported and encouraged the murder of people for what you considered to be blasphemy….
After the defendant accepted that Mr Paty did not deserve to die and that the teacher’s killer was not ‘as brave as a lion’ – contradicting one of his retweets – Mr Pawson-Round asked him: ‘Why did you retweet a tweet saying all these things then?’
Shahpal responded: ‘As I have already told you, the reason behind this was just to have some more followers.
‘At the time when I retweeted it, that picture (of a severed head) wasn’t fully open at that time on the feed of Twitter.
‘So at the time I did not know what picture it was that I was retweeting.’ Claiming he had only read the first line of the message before retweeting it, Shahpal added: ‘I did not fully read it.
‘What I have read, it did not say that his chopped off head was lying on the floor. A friend of mine who set up this account for me, he told me that if you do this, you are going to get more followers.’
When quizzed about a further tweet which called for rapists to be stoned to death, Shahpal said it did not accord with his beliefs and he had ‘just copied and pasted’ a message written in English ‘because the issue was ongoing’ in Pakistan.
A suspected Islamist encouraged people to cut off the heads of blasphemers and retweeted praise for a terrorist ‘just to have some more followers’, a terror trial has heard.
Ajmal Shahpal, appearing at Birmingham Crown Court on Monday, claimed he did not believe that the killer of French school teacher Samuel Paty was ‘as brave as a lion’ or that the victim ‘deserved to be killed’ in France in October 2020.
Prosecutors allege that Shahpal, of Birkin Avenue, Nottingham, encouraged others to commit acts of terrorism through his social media coverage, including one retweet containing an image of Mr Paty’s severed head….
Under cross-examination from prosecutor Dan Pawson-Pounds, Shahpal, who is originally from Pakistan and was assisted by an Urdu interpreter, denied pretending to have a poor understanding of English to try to escape responsibility for his tweets.
Mr Pawson-Pounds told Shahpal, who passed a taxi exam and studied for a diploma in English and business management after coming to the UK in 2009: ‘The Crown suggests that you were a radicalised follower of extreme Islam and that you both supported and encouraged the murder of people for what you considered to be blasphemy….
After the defendant accepted that Mr Paty did not deserve to die and that the teacher’s killer was not ‘as brave as a lion’ – contradicting one of his retweets – Mr Pawson-Round asked him: ‘Why did you retweet a tweet saying all these things then?’
Shahpal responded: ‘As I have already told you, the reason behind this was just to have some more followers.
‘At the time when I retweeted it, that picture (of a severed head) wasn’t fully open at that time on the feed of Twitter.
‘So at the time I did not know what picture it was that I was retweeting.’ Claiming he had only read the first line of the message before retweeting it, Shahpal added: ‘I did not fully read it.
‘What I have read, it did not say that his chopped off head was lying on the floor. A friend of mine who set up this account for me, he told me that if you do this, you are going to get more followers.’
When quizzed about a further tweet which called for rapists to be stoned to death, Shahpal said it did not accord with his beliefs and he had ‘just copied and pasted’ a message written in English ‘because the issue was ongoing’ in Pakistan.
