Student's terror conviction is overturned (From Asian Image)

Student's terror conviction is overturned

11:11am Tuesday 9th February 2010

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A student dubbed a “wannabe suicide bomber” had his conviction quashed by appeal court judges today.

Mohammed Atif Siddique, from Alva, Clackmannanshire, was locked up for eight years in October 2007 after being convicted of a series of terror offences.

He was the first person to be convicted of Islamist terror charges in Scotland.

But three senior judges last month said he suffered a miscarriage of justice after the trial judge misdirected the jury.

And today they formally overturned the most serious conviction, which earned him six years of his sentence, at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh today.

The Crown said it did not intend to seek a fresh prosecution against the 24-year-old, who has spent nearly four years in custody.

Members of Siddique’s family wept and hugged each other outside court, moments after Lord Osborne said judges would quash the main conviction on charge one.

Siddique’s convictions on two lesser terrorism charges were not affected by the Appeal Court judgment and he has served his sentence for them.

He was expected to walk free from court later.

Earlier, Derek Ogg QC, for the Crown, said that, after “careful consideration”, they had decided not to seek a retrial.

Setting out the reasons for that decision, he told the court: “Mohammed Siddique has served the majority of the sentence imposed on charge one and has de facto completed his sentence in full for the other terrorist charges and related breach of the peace, for which he remains convicted.

”This, combined with the impact of developments in the law and the passage of time since the offences began, would mean that any retrial would have little practical effect.”

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