An Algerian national who was found guilty of funding terrorism following a suicide bombing in Stockholm (Sweden) has been sentenced to seven years in prison.

• The defendent Nasserdine Menni was convicted of transferring money to Taimour Abdulwahab, who later blew himself up in the Swedish capital on December 11 2010.
• He sent a total of £5,725 to a bank account in Abdulwahab’s name in the knowledge that it could be used for terrorism purposes.
  Menni, whose age is not known, was also convicted of immigration and benefit fraud.
• However, he was cleared of a charge which alleged he conspired to murder members of the Swedish public when a jury found it not proven after a 12-week trial at the High Court in Glasgow.
• At the same court today Judge Lord Matthews jailed Menni for seven years.
• There was a heavy police presence at the court, where the judge told Menni: “Funding provides assistance for those who would carry out terrorist acts.
• “The sentencing of the court must reflect the potential use.”
• The court heard that Menni intends to appeal against his conviction.
• His defence counsel, William Taylor QC, said immigration authorities had notified his client that they would attempt to have him expelled from the UK.
• Taimour Abdulwahab rigged an Audi car with explosives in the hope that the blast would drive people to Drottninggatan, a busy shopping street about 200 yards away, where he was waiting to set off two more devices strapped to his chest and back.
• The car bomb never went off and, after setting fire to the Audi, he was unable to detonate the other two explosives as planned.
• He made his way down a side street off Drottninggatan and, in an apparent attempt to fix the faulty trigger up his sleeve, set off the bomb on the front of his body, killing only himself.
• Menni transferred the money to Taimour Abdulwahab between January 2005 and December 2010.
• Menni moved to Glasgow in 2009 after living in Luton, Bedfordshire, where he is believed to have first met Abdulwahab, for five years.
• He was a bogus Kuwaiti asylum seeker and claimed he was escaping persecution.
• He worked in bars and restaurants around the city and lived at an asylum seekers’ hostel in Curle Street.
• He obtained a false French passport and identity documents to open a bank account and later claimed benefits he was not entitled to.
• Police swooped on him in February last year following three months of constant surveillance in which they established contact between him and Abdulwahab.
• Lord Matthews sentenced Menni to a total of 30 months for the benefit and immigration charges. This will run concurrently with the seven-year sentence, backdated to March last year when he entered custody.
• Detective Chief Superintendent John Cuddihy, from Strathclyde Police, said Menni’s arrest was a “severe blow to terrorism”.