Man being sentenced over fairy lights bomb attempt
An Islamic State fan will be sentenced later for trying to make an improvised bomb using fairy lights.
Zahid Hussain considered targeting railway lines after he was radicalised in his bedroom by viewing hundreds of IS images of the war in Syria, jurors heard.
His trial at Birmingham Crown Court was told how he wrongly believed his non-viable "bomb" - packed with shrapnel - was capable of causing devastation.
The 29-year-old, who was captured on CCTV clambering into a storm drain near a high-speed railway line, was arrested in August 2015 after being seen "patrolling" the streets near his home in Naseby Road, Alum Rock.
He was found guilty of preparing terrorist acts and will be sentenced by Mr Justice Sweeney at the Old Bailey.
The defendant was arrested after reports of a man carrying a hammer and behaving suspiciously in Alum Rock.
He was taken to a police station where officers found he was in possession of handwritten recipes for explosives, a modified fairy light, and a hand-drawn map showing a drainage chamber in Alum Rock.
Officers went to his home and found an "improvised laboratory" and four allegedly viable igniters fashioned from fairy lights, the court heard.
CCTV footage showed Hussain inspecting a drainage chamber near a railway embankment in Woodlands Road, Alum Rock, in the early hours of July 31 and August 2 2015.
