Zana Abbas Sulieman, 26, has been jailed after using Facebook to spread an ISIS bomb-making video
An illegal asylum-seeker has been jailed after using Facebook to spread an ISIS bomb-making video that showed how to make the same explosive used in the Manchester Arena attacks.
Zana Abbas Sulieman, 26, was sleeping rough in a storage unit in an underground car park 100 yards from Paddington Green police station – the police station formerly used to interrogate terrorism suspects.
Police discovered he was working illegally on a nearby market but was using his Apple iPhone to post deadly ISIS propaganda on social media.
In total, detectives found 32 Facebook accounts linked to Sulieman that contained terrorist-related material.
Three months after the Manchester attack, he used Facebook to publish an instructional video about how to make a viable improvised explosive device.
He was caught after he accepted a friend request on Facebook from an undercover police officer on August 7, 2017.
On the account, in the name ‘Zedan Kurdi Abbas’, the officer found a 14mins 57secs bomb-making video which provided ‘detailed instructions on producing an IED in the kitchen using hydrogen peroxide and ball bearings,’ prosecutors said.
It featured an ISIS flag in the corner of the screen and at the end of the video the viewer was urged to have a ‘clear intention’, maintain faith and he would be rewarded by Allah.
The video was published on the Facebook account with the comment, ‘Making explosives is very important for local operations’.
The Forensic Explosives Laboratory (FEL) assess that the video provided ‘sufficient instructional information for use in the manufacture of the high explosive material TATP, a viable detonator, and their use in the construction of an IED.’
As Sulieman was jailed for nine years at Kingston Crown Court, Commander Dean Haydon, head of Scotland Yard’s Counter-Terrorism Command, said he was ‘prolific’ in his sharing and promotion of ISIS material and propaganda on social media.
‘But what was of most concern was that he viewed and shared a video showing how to make a bomb, and encouraged others to follow and carry out the instructions,’ Mr Haydon said.
‘He was a dangerous individual and I have no doubt that the public is safer with him behind bars.’
In one exchange, Suleiman was asked: ‘Brother can you send the video of making explosives to me?’
As Sulieman was jailed for nine years at Kingston Crown Court (pictured), Commander Dean Haydon, head of Scotland Yard’s Counter-Terrorism Command, said he was ‘prolific’
He replied: ‘Peace be upon you. I am going to send it brother, I am a little busy.’
When he did send it, he added: ‘Look at it, it is very important.’
An issue of the 16-page weekly ISIS magazine Al-Naba released on Telegram on August 3, reported a suicide attack at the Iraqi embassy in Kabul and urged lone-wolf terrorists to strike Western embassies and diplomats.
Suleiman posted the magazine on his Facebook page the following day and prosecutors said it was a ‘publication by a terrorist organisation and directly encourages acts of terrorism.’
On August 7, Suleiman posted a knife attack video on Facebook with the comment, ‘Hayat media centre presents video entitled ‘from the inside’.’
The video had been released by ISIS the same day and featured a male named Abu Adam with an English-language chant called a nasheed which included the lines, ‘Holding up the flag, I am seeking paradise…destroy the kuffar [non-believers]’.
Abu Adam addressed his ‘brothers’ and urged them to travel to Raqqa, first in Arabic and then in English, sating that those from Australia who could not get to Raqqa should ‘go and aid your brothers in the fight against the Crusader government of the Philippines’.
Adam questioned: ‘Where is your pledge to Allah oh Muslim? Your zeal should be greater and actions much more decisive. And if you are unable to make hijra [migrate] then inflict terror upon the kuffar and punish them for their crimes against the Muslims.
‘Make the lands of the Crusaders your battlefield. They are frontiers of war. The defenders of the cross have no covenant of safety. So kill them wherever you find them.
‘If you’re a tradesman, use your nail gun and nail the kuffar to the head and crucify his body to the woodworks. If you’re a truck driver ram their crowds until their streets run with their filthy blood. Or pour petrol over their houses whilst they’re asleep and engulf their houses with flames. That way the message will be burnt into their memories…’
The video ended by showing extracts from previous ISIS videos, including bombings, suicide attacks and beheadings.
Suleiman had first claimed asylum, pretending to be a child, in January 2014 in Cardiff.
Biometric checks identified a match to an asylum application in Italy in 2012 and after he was assessed to be an adult by Cardiff Social Services, he was referred to the Welsh Refugee Council in February 2015.
That December, Sulieman was detained in France from where he was deported back Britain and granted temporary release in February 2016, after which he failed to report in with the Border Agency.
He later told police that his father was dead and his mother and sister lived in Iraq. He left Iraq for Turkey when he was aged 19 and was smuggled from Turkey to Italy.
When his asylum application was refused in Italy, he travelled to France and then from Calais to London.
Following his release by the Border Agency in February 2016 he travelled to Liverpool and Manchester before returning to London.
He said he obtained assistance from local mosques and churches where he was able to use shower and toilet facilities.
Sulieman worked ‘informally’ on a market stall in Edgware Road where one fellow worker complained that he was sent a link to an ISIS radio station and another said he could hear the sound of gun shots when Sulieman was watching videos on his phone.
But when he was arrested by police, he claimed to support the Kurdish PKK – deadly enemies of ISIS – and that his family was associated with the Kurd’s Peshmerga fighters.