Global Security Newswire

A British man has been sentenced to 27 months behind bars after being found guilty of possessing instructions for producing the toxin ricin and directions for building crude bombs, the Press Association reported on Friday (see GSN, June 17, 2011).

Asim Kausar, who is of Pakistani origin, had pleaded guilty at Manchester criminal court to four charges of between 2009 and 2011 gathering information that could be employed in the commission of terrorist acts.

Government attorneys acknowledged the 25-year-old man had not distributed the information or attempted to implement it in any physical fashion. No evidence came to light that would indicate Kausar had any connections to extremist organizations.

Ricin, derived from castor beans, is lethal in even trace amounts and has no known antidote. The toxin was most famously used in the 1978 assassination of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov, and schemes to produce ricin continue to be uncovered (see GSN, Nov. 17, 2011).

Kausar informed authorities he had gathered the information from the Internet out of "curiosity and a thirst for knowledge."

In passing sentence, Judge Andrew Gilbart said: "I accept that all of this material is available on the Internet and can be bought from retailers such as Amazon and I accept some of it is out of date. But that makes them no less dangerous or any less useful to a person committing an act of terrorism."

Prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones said Kausar had "scoured the Internet" for information on Islamic extremist groups and had written a letter that stated "I want to fight jihad for Allah" (Press Association/London Guardian, Jan. 27).