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| Woman cleared of smuggling money for Syria in underwear | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| A woman accused of trying to smuggle 20,000 euros (£15,800) in her underwear to a Briton fighting in Syria has been found not guilty of funding terrorism. | |
| Nawal Msaad, 27, from north London, was stopped at Heathrow Airport as she prepared to board a flight to Istanbul, Turkey, on 16 January. | Nawal Msaad, 27, from north London, was stopped at Heathrow Airport as she prepared to board a flight to Istanbul, Turkey, on 16 January. |
| Amal El-Wahabi, 27, who was accused of trying to get her to smuggle the money, was found guilty of funding terrorism. | Amal El-Wahabi, 27, who was accused of trying to get her to smuggle the money, was found guilty of funding terrorism. |
| Prosecutors said El-Wahabi's husband had joined rebels fighting in Syria. | |
| Ms Msaad, who was a first year student at London Metropolitan University at the time of her arrest, had denied being an Islamist extremist, saying she had been duped by El-Wahabi. | |
| She said she had hidden the cash to keep it safe - but said she had only put it under the waist strap of her leggings. | |
| The jury at London's Old Bailey found El-Wahabi guilty of persuading her friend to take the money to her husband by a majority verdict. | |
| As she was acquitted, Ms Msaad sobbed in the dock, before running out of court. | |
| El-Wahabi began screaming after her conviction, forcing judge Nicholas Hilliard to clear the court. She faces a maximum sentence of 14 years. | |
| Prosecutors said that in 2013 El-Wahabi's husband, Aine Davis, had travelled to Syria to join jihadists fighting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. | |
| In January this year, Mr Davis, also known as Hamza, asked his wife to arrange the delivery of cash to neighbouring Turkey. | |
| The court heard El-Wahabi, a north London mother-of-two, texted her old school friend to see if she would act as a courier in return for a 1,000 euro payment. | |
| Ms Msaad replied: "Whaaaay". | |
| Bundle of cash | |
| The jury heard that, after further discussion, the human resources student agreed to take the cash to Mr Davis and booked a flight to Istanbul. | |
| However, when she went to board her flight at Heathrow Airport, police questioned her about the purpose of the trip. | |
| Ms Msaad told them she was going for a short break and was carrying 20,000 euros "around me" so that she could buy gold for her mother. | |
| Prosecutors say that when she was searched, she retrieved a tightly-wrapped bundle of cash from her underwear. | |
| It was alleged Ms Msaad may well have further concealed it within her body inside a condom - something she denied. | |
| Ms Msaad said she readily volunteered that she was carrying the cash and didn't want to conceal what she was doing. | |
| Almost all of the bundle was 500 euro notes, which are banned in the UK in an effort to combat money laundering by drugs gangs. | |
| 'Stitched up' | |
| Ms Msaad, who was also facing a maximum sentence of 14 years, was often photographed turning up at court wearing short skirts and other fashionable ensembles, making no attempt to hide the electronic tag on her ankle. | |
| She denied planning to fund jihadists - and said she had believed the cash was part of El-Wahabi's plan to move to Turkey to join her husband. | |
| The student said she assumed acting as a personal courier was cheaper than using a currency transfer service - and that she was embarrassed that she had used a condom to keep it safe. | |
| "She [El-Wahabi] wasn't completely honest with me about where the money came from," said Ms Msaad told the trial. | |
| "And so I do get that feeling, I'm not going to deny that… the feeling that I have been stitched up. I had no intention to smuggle money into Turkey." | |
| Ms Msaad, whose family were originally from Morocco, said she considered herself Muslim but was not particularly religious. She said she had no strong political views and had not read jihadist literature. | |
| In many terrorism cases, prosecutors often present evidence of an extremist mindset gleaned by police from forensic examinations of mobile phones and computers. | |
| In Ms Msaad's case, her Facebook profile was focused on socialising with friends at parties and festivals. | |
| In one Twitter picture she had given her electronic bail tag a designer touch by attaching a Chanel logo. | |
| 'Extreme material' | |
| After her release from prison on bail in March, she published on YouTube a cover version of a Jennifer Lopez song, protesting that she was the "same girl" who'd been let down by fake friends. | |
| She also posted a statement on Facebook denying the allegations, saying: "At no point did I try to conceal the money from the police, I volunteered the amount of money I was taking." | |
| "I can't help but wonder if I had been called Natalie from Surrey whether the authorities would have presented terrorism charges against me." | |
| The court heard that Aine Davis was a former drug dealer with a conviction for possessing a firearm. | |
| He had subsequently converted to Islam, taking the name Hamza, and travelled widely in the Middle East before joining an aid convoy in Syria last year. | |
| When police searched El-Wahabi's home, they say they found extremist material, including material on a mobile phone relating to the main Syrian jihadist group, then called Isis. | |
| He also sent home pictures of himself posing with armed men in Syria. |