Law Student Found Guilty In Secret U.K. Terrorism Trial

Erol Incedal, seen in this court artist's sketch, appears at the Old Bailey in London. The court found him guilty last week of possessing a bomb-making document.

Elizabeth Cook/PA Photos/Landov

A law student from London was found guilty in a secret terrorism trial of possessing a bomb-making document. Last Tuesday's verdict against 26-year-old law student Erol Incedal was made public today after a U.K. judge lifted an order that forbade the media from reporting it.

Incedal was also charged with committing acts preparatory to terrorism. The jury, the BBC reports, failed to reach a verdict on that charge, but Incedal, who had denied the allegations against him, could still face trial on the charge. The BBC added:

"His co-defendant, Mounir Rarmoul-Bouhadjar, 26, pleaded guilty before the trial began to possession of a bomb-making document identical to the one Incedal had.

"During the trial, the Old Bailey had heard claims Incedal was considering an indiscriminate Mumbai-style terror attack and had an address for a property owned by ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife Cherie."

The two men were arrested in October 2013.

We told you about the trial in June. At first it was billed as a trial so secret that little was known about it — except that it involved terrorism. The names of the two men being tried were kept secret, as were their alleged offenses. But British media protested the secrecy, and noted that it was the first time in British history that such a trial would have been conducted. They were given some respite: Britain's Court of Appeal ruled that the core of the trial could be heard partly in secret, but parts must be held in public.