A teen accused of plotting a terrorist assault on central London with a drill rapper he met on-line turned obsessive about the violent online game, Call of Duty, he has advised a courtroom.
The 15-year-old, from Roundhay, Leeds, who can’t be named, is accused of serving to Al-Arfat Hassan, 19, from Enfield, North London, put together for a knife and bomb assault.
Hassan, who used the stage title TS, gathered tons of of hundreds of followers on YouTube, Spotify and the radio station Kiss FM.
He is accused of planning an assault in central London after viewing an ISIS video tutorial, shopping for bomb-making chemical compounds and buying knives.
The pair met on-line after {the teenager} helped promote Hassan’s Islamist drill rap on TikTookay, and so they began speaking about faith and enjoying PlayStation pc video games like Fortnite, Assassin’s Creed and Call of Duty, he mentioned.
“Sometime in 2021, I started to spend a lot more time in my room and played a lot more PlayStation and Call of Duty and that is where a lot of the combat gear came from,” he advised the courtroom, giving proof in his defence.
“The more I played it, the more I thought, this looks cool.”
The teenager purchased balaclavas and, on one event, navy gloves, that he had seen worn within the sport, he mentioned.
Teen’s curiosity got here from ‘means sure knives’ have been crafted
He described how he spent 9 or 10 hours a day enjoying violent video video games, which impressed him to purchase knives that have been “exactly the same as the ones you see in the games”.
“To be honest, I have always had the interest because of the video games I play and the movies that I watch,” he mentioned. “I have had the interest for quite an amount of time, I couldn’t give a date for when it started.
“With lots of people my age, in the event that they play the identical video games and watch the identical motion pictures, they may suppose it’s cool.
“My interest comes from the way certain knives and swords are designed and crafted. I will look at it and think, that’s cool.”
Call of Duty was described as a “first-person shooter” sport set on a battlefield or in a metropolis, wherein the gamers may type “Deathmatch” groups and use knives, swords, weapons, and rocket-propelled grenades.
The teenager would additionally play Fortnite, which he described as a “third-person shooter” sport the place the view is from behind the character, and the purpose is to kill 99 different gamers on an island.
A 3rd sport, known as Assassin’s Creed, was based mostly on totally different tales from “olden times,” {the teenager} mentioned.
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Posting ‘actually graphic’ drill lyrics on-line
From late 2019, {the teenager} additionally developed an curiosity in violent drill music, and he received extra considering it throughout the first lockdown, he mentioned.
The teenager got here throughout Hassan – often called Official TS – in mid or late 2020 when “someone was showing me his music and I liked it and I asked what his name was and was told it was Official TS, and I went from there”.
The teenager adopted Hassan on Instagram and Snapchat and commenced messaging him in January final yr.
“I had a TikTok account with 15,000 followers, a lot of people were interested in the content I was posting – unusual or scary I guess you could say drill lyrics,” he mentioned.
After he got here throughout a monitor known as Satan 2.0, he determined the final part was “really graphic you could say, so I posted it to my TikTok and someone advised me to do that and said it would get a lot of views”.
Over time, it collected 700,000 views and Hassan “messaged me about that post, basically thanking me.”
Hassan and {the teenager} deny fees of making ready acts of terrorism. Hassan additionally denies fees of possessing and disseminating terrorist materials.
The trial continues.
Source: information.sky.com”