White supremacist who planned Scottish mosque arson attack convicted on terrorism charges

A white supremacist who once considered setting fire to a mosque in Scotland was convicted of several terror charges but was acquitted of a terrorism charge that said he was preparing to engage in an act of terrorism.

Sam Imrie in Fife was convicted of making statements on messaging app Telegram and Facebook which encouraged acts of terrorism, and he accrued a second charge for making a “record of information” which may be useful for someone who was committing acts of terrorism.

The 24-year-old, who dropped out of school at the age of 14, became radicalised by right-wing ideology online, and particularly anti-Muslim hate on 8Chan and Telegram.

Imrie posted online: "All my heroes are mass murderers”, the BBC reports, and he idolised white supremacist mass murderer Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in Norway in 2011. He studied Brenton Harrison Tarrant, an Australian who attacked two mosques in New Zealand and killed 51 people. He had live-streamed the first shooting on Facebook.

Imrie had posted a comment online about how he was thinking about carrying out an attack and was considering live-streaming it.

During his trial at the High Court in Edinburgh, he defended himself, saying his comments were a joke and that he was not serious about setting a mosque on fire.

Zara Mohammed, secretary general of The Muslim Council of Britain, told BBC Scotland’s The Nine programme: "Not only is it shocking to believe that someone would want to do this, especially to places of worship, but the hatred that fuelled his intensions.

"For Muslim communities in Scotland it has built a bit of anxiety and fear that people are willing to carry out such horrible acts towards our community."

She added: "I think we can't take it for granted how serious these things are and how they impact real lives and the consequences of them."

"It is worrying that we are seeing a rise in far-right activity against mosques and Muslim communities and we need more done to resolve this."

Imrie is expected to be sentenced at the High Court in Glasgow on 24 November.