A couple who met on an online dating website have been found guilty of plotting an Islamic State-inspired attack over Christmas.
Munir Mohammed, 37, enlisted the help of pharmacist Rowaida el-Hassan on SingleMuslim.com after volunteering for a lone wolf mission directed by a man he believed was an IS commander on Facebook.
Mohammed, a Sudanese asylum seeker who arrived in the back of a lorry in February 2014, was arrested in December 2016 at his home in Leopold Street, Derby.
Police found two of the three components for the explosive TATP, manuals on how to make explosives, mobile phone detonators and ricin, a deadly poison.
Both he and Hassan, 33, of Willesden Lane, northwest London, denied preparing terrorist acts between November 2015 and December 2016.
An Old Bailey jury on Monday found the pair guilty of the plot and Judge Michael Topolski QC remanded the pair in custody, warning therm they face jail when they are sentenced on 22 February.
Mohammed, who was living in Derby, used Facebook to get in touch with an IS commander, asking him for a bomb-making recipe and further instructions. He had also researched the deadly poison ricin while working illegally in a Kerry Foods factory making sauces for supermarket chains.
Hassan, a former Boots pharmacist, "rapidly formed an emotional attachment" after meeting Mohammed online, prosecutors said.
He sent her gory videos of IS executions, including some carried out by children. She asked him to "send more" and helped guide him to the right chemicals for his bomb.
He bought two of the three ingredients required to make the explosive called triacetone triperoxide (TATP), known as Mother of Satan, and thought he had a third.
Investigators believe that it was only his lack of English that meant he had accidentally bought the wrong third ingredient.
Anne Whyte QC, prosecuting, told the jury at the Old Bailey: "Rowaida Hassan was the educated assistant with a rallying cry when he needed it and the pharmaceutical knowledge to help. Munir Mohammed was the active heavy lifter. They were both assets to ISIS in their different ways."
