Swindon student downloaded terrorist documents ‘in case of social disorder’

An A-level student accused of sharing terrorism documents has told a court he downloaded instructions for making weapons because they could be useful in case of “social disorder” caused by Covid or a foreign invasion.

Malakai Wheeler, of Stamford Close, Toothill, Swindon, Wiltshire, is on trial at Winchester Crown Court accused of having copies of the Terrorist Handbook, the Anarchist’s Handbook and a document called Homemade Detonators.

The 18-year-old also denies sharing in a chatroom 92 documents and 35 images, as well as two other charges of sharing instructions for the use of items that could be used to perform acts of terrorism, including smoke grenades.

The defendant told the court he had not read all of the documents and only downloaded them as part of a batch of files, in order to archive them because he believed they were going to be removed from the internet by the social media platform Telegram.

Explaining why he downloaded instructions for making weapons, he said they could have been useful in the case of “social disorder”.

He said: “Weapons could be useful if there was a serious emergency. Covid showed things could come out of the blue.

"It could be an economic problem or a foreign invasion – things can just pop out of nowhere.”

Wheeler said he also accessed a file called 100 Deadly Skills because he felt they could be useful in such circumstances, with their descriptions of techniques to escape from a hotel or to “stop yourself from drowning if you were tied up in the water”.

Wheeler said he read one of the documents, Allied Sabotage Devices, because of a “historical interest” in the Second World War and found it “mildly interesting”.

He said he had no intention of acting on any of the documents and denied downloading the files to prepare acts of terrorism or to encourage or assist others to do so.

The defendant denied having white supremacist or antisemitic views, despite using a Nazi swastika as part of his Telegram profile image and creating a library channel of documents headed National Socialism – a reference to the Nazis.

He accepted downloading a file called Werewolves Of The Third Reich – in reference to a division of the SS in the war.

And he accepted being photographed in a skull mask and doing a Nazi salute.

Describing his links to national socialism, he said: “I have an interest and sympathy with some of it, but not all of it.”

He said he accessed videos, from the terrorist group calling itself Islamic State, showing people being killed out of “morbid curiosity”, adding: “It’s not something you see in everyday life.”

He denies all six charges against him and the trial continues.

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