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Algerian guilty of UK terror charges
SPECIAL REPORTYOUR E-MAIL ALERTSLONDON, England (CNN) -- A court in Northern Ireland has found an Algerian man guilty of two terrorism charges -- possession of articles likely to be of use for terrorism and collecting information likely to be of use for terrorism. Abbas Boutrab was found not guilty at Belfast Crown Court on Thursday on two lesser charges. Among the articles found in his possession were 25 computer disks onto which Islamist instruction manuals on how to construct bombs suitable for smuggling on to airplanes had been downloaded from the Internet, prosecutors said. He was also found with a circuit board from which had been removed four capacitors -- which could be used in the construction of detonators. He was initially arrested and released in 2002 on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant. But calls he made while in detention led police to rearrest him on terrorism offenses in April 2003. Boutrab was tried under what's referred to in Northern Ireland as the "Diplock court system" -- which means there was no jury. It is the first time the system has been used for anything other than republican and loyalist terrorism trials and is being closely watched in Britain, where Home Secretary Charles Clark has raised the prospect of non-jury trials for those accused of terrorism. Boutrab will be sentenced in the week before Christmas. As this is a ground-breaking case it is not clear what the sentence is likely to be but those following the trial believe he will be sentenced to between three and five years in prison. 
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