A “self-radicalised lone wolf terrorist” who took a bomb to the hospital where he worked intending to “kill as many nurses as possible” has been found guilty of preparing terrorist acts.
Mohammad Farooq, 28, was arrested outside St James’s Hospital in Leeds with a pressure cooker bomb designed to be twice as powerful as those used by the Boston Marathon bombers in 2013.
Sheffield Crown Court heard Farooq had immersed himself in an “extremist Islamic ideology” and went to the hospital to “seek his own martyrdom” through a “murderous terrorist attack”.
He was stopped by a patient who was outside having a cigarette and managed to talk him down, jurors were told.
Prosecutors said Farooq had originally intended to attack RAF Menwith Hill – a North Yorkshire military base used by the United States that had been identified as a target by so-called Islamic State.
When he thought that was not possible, jurors were told Farooq then switched to the “softer and less well-protected target” of St James’s Hospital in the early hours of January 20 last year.
The defendant was a clinical support worker at the hospital and his “secondary motive” for choosing it was that he had a grievance against several of his former colleagues and had been conducting a poison pen campaign against them, the court heard.
Farooq denied preparing terrorist acts, with defence counsel Gul Nawaz Hussain KC telling jurors Farooq was not an extremist but a “troubled man” who was motivated by “deep rooted anger and grievance” towards his colleagues.
On Tuesday a jury convicted him of the offence after deliberating for less than two hours.
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