Legal News
Jailed asylum seeker appeals against conviction (4 November 2013)
Date: 04/11/2013
Lawyers have told an appeal court in Scotland that an asylum seeker from Algeria was wrongly convicted of funding terrorism.
Nasserdine Menni, 39, was accused of transferring more than £6,000 into bank accounts in the reasonable knowledge that the funds might be used for terrorism.
He was convicted and jailed for seven years, which his legal team says is a miscarriage of justice.
Mr Menni has always denied the charge against him – and was cleared of a more serious charge that he conspired with intent to murder with Taimour Abdulwahab, the Stockholm bomber who died after an explosive device was detonated in the Swedish capital in December 2010.
During Menni’s trial, jurors at the High Court in Glasgow were told by the presiding judge Lord Matthews that even if Menni were acquitted of the conspiracy charge, it would be “just open” for them to convict on the lesser charge, which criminal lawyers representing Mr Menni have criticised.
Last week judges at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh heard from William Taylor QC that there was insufficient evidence to convict Menni.
“In our submission, he required to tell the jury where the evidence was in relation to terrorist purposes other than in Sweden and to assist them in forming a view on it,” he told the Court of Criminal Appeal.
Mr Menni and his legal team are appealing his conviction on the grounds that if he is innocent of the more serious conspiracy charge, he should not have been convicted of the second charge relating to the funding of terrorism.
However, the Crown said that from the evidence presented at the trial, the jury could infer that Menni had supplied and transferred the funds for the purposes of terrorism.
The appeal hearing continues.