A U.K. man believed to be suffering from schizophrenia has received a life sentence after being arrested for attempting to make bombs out of fairy lights and a pressure cooker. Zahid Hussain, a 29-year-old former doorman living with his parents in the Alum Rock suburb of Birmingham, England, was arrested in 2015 after police received reports of a man acting suspiciously. After being taken into custody, police found handwritten recipes for explosives, a hand-drawn map showing a drainage chamber, and books in his bedroom containing instructions on guerilla warfare and sabotage. A page describing how to derail a train had been carefully marked.
In Hussain's own words, he became "bedroom radicalized" after reading ISIS recruitment literature and watching videos of the war in Syria. In the months leading up to his arrest, he had separated from his wife and three children and became increasingly bizarre in his behaviour. "He became withdrawn and isolated from his family and spent hours both day and night on his computer, where he bought most of the items he used to construct the devices," according to a statement released by police at the time of his arrest.
While the pressure cooker device he had constructed would not have worked due to errors in its construction, Hussain had converted fairy lights into electronic igniters as well as remote control detonator. All of the materials he had used were found in his bedroom which he called his "base of operations."
Since being convicted in May of this year, Hussain has been seen by several psychiatrists who diagnosed him as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. In handing down a life sentence, the judge rule that Hussain's diagnosis ‘was only partly attributable to that disorder' and that the "primary driver" was his "voluntary bedroom radicalization." He also told Hussain that his "culpability is extremely high as more than one explosion was clearly intended, and the harm to be caused was ultimately loss of life or serious injury to the person. You were clearly deeply radicalised and, over a period of at least nine months, were strongly committed to what you were doing."
Zahid Hussain is expected to serve a minimum of fifteen years before being eligible for parole.
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