VANCOUVER — Laptops seized from a pair of accused B.C. terrorists held recordings of the Qur'an alongside extremist literature and concealed files with instructions on building and setting off bombs, a trial has heard.
On Wednesday, an RCMP forensic computer expert showed a jury the contents of two laptops taken from John Nuttall and Amanda Korody hours after they allegedly dropped off homemade pressure-cooker explosives outside the provincial legislature in the early hours of Canada Day 2013.
On one of the computers, Cpl. Barry Salt logged into an account titled Mujahid — Arabic for holy warrior.
The jury saw the home screen's black background was decorated with an Islamic creed written in flowing white script above the silhouette of an AK47 gun and the words "Support Our Troops."
Salt showed that the computer contained files ranging from Adolf Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" to various editions of the al-Qaeda magazine Inspire, as well as text documents titled The CIA's Book of Dirty Tricks, and The Satanic Bible.
At one point, Salt traced a hard-to-follow pathway of file folders to reveal a stash of links and text documents.
They included diary-like entries that described the writer's conversion to Islam, as well as a digital copy of "The Anarchist's Cookbook," a 1970s counterculture publication that includes a do-it-yourself guide on making and detonating explosives.
"Being that this was saved in quite an obscure path stands out to me as it may perhaps have been hidden or out of the easy-to-find realm," Salt told B.C. Supreme Court.
Salt also pointed out a couple saved links, one to an Associated Press article titled "Pressure cookers help make good bombs, and clues," and another to a forum post asking how much shock is necessary to detonate C4 plastic explosives.
The trial heard the laptops also held text documents containing various lists of Arabic-English translations, with phrases such as: kill them, kill their leader and kill the (infidels).
One folder contained a series of cat photos alongside a picture of Osama bin Laden kneeling while aiming an assault rifle.
Icons for various violent video games could also be made out on the computers' desktops, including several versions each of the shooter games Counter-Strike, Quake, Half-Life and Doom.
During the computer tour by the corporal, a window called Islamic Finder would pop up, highlighting Muslim prayer times for various locations around the world.
The trial has heard that Nuttall and Korody recently converted to Islam and were eager to take part in what they described as the war between Muslims and the western world.
They were arrested after a months-long undercover police sting and have both pleaded not guilty to four terrorism-related charges.
