Socks man gets 15-year term

Now as a former drug dealer and convert to the nastier forms of Islam I cannot exactly say that I am distraught over his conviction. Until, that is I got to the evidence against him. A single peice of paper code book, and a pair of socks. That is it, and for that he gets 15 years. What?

The aliby was perfectly plausable for their state, hanging something up to practice aim is used in several martial arts, e.g. fencing, and if he was into an empty hand style then using something soft like socks is a very good idea. If he had been travelling helping Muslim groups then he could well have come into contact with explosives, he could even have come into contact in a legitimate way say helping with mine clearance in Bosnia as he said. All the evidence is circumstancial, and utterly unconvincing. Yet the judge decides to give him a sentence 5 years longer than the maximum sentence normally given. What was he planning with these lethal socks? Nobody knows but according to the judge:

"Whatever your terrorist purpose was, its fulfilment was imminent," the judge told Rowe.

how on earth could he know that if he did not know what was being planned? He was

"a paid operative over a substantial period of time, travelling the world and furthering the cause of Muslim fundamentalism."

a cause which the judge has now done a great service by creating a, living for once, martyr.