A rapper who posted a ‘menacing’ video, featuring a gun gesture, about EDL-founder Tommy Robinson has been found guilty.
Omar Abdirizak, known as Twista Cheese, released the TikTok video during nationwide disorder last year. It gained more than two million views.
In it, the 31-year-old from Birmingham wore a patterned hoodie, grey jogging bottoms and said he was a Somali pirate.
The drill rapped also made a gun gesture, as if holding a rifle, while shouting ‘pow, pow, pow’. He said he had a message for Robinson, adding her had ‘Muslims in every corner’ and ‘look at the artillery we’ve got’.
Mr Robinson claimed this was a threat to murder him, when he shared the video on X and urged police to investigate.
Abdirizak denied making a gun gesture and threats to the jailed former leader of the English Defence League, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.
‘I am saying, if you come – self-defence’, the rapper, of Long Street, Sparkbrook, told the court. ‘Even when I say ‘bam, bam, bam’, this is all entertainment.’
He claims he decided to make the video and share it with his 20,000 followers on YouTube and TikTok ‘to put Tommy Robinson in his place’ after seeing footage of broadcaster Piers Morgan and influencer Andrew Tate discussing last summer’s riots.
This ‘context is important’, according to prosecutor Tim Talbot-Webb, who said: ‘This was going on when there was indeed disorder aimed at mosques and other institutions.’
Mr Abdirizak’s references to guns and artillery meant the video crossed the line from freedom of speech into criminality, Mr Talbot-Webb said.
‘Menacing means causing fear or apprehension’, he told Birmingham Crown Court.
‘Any member of the public seeing that could well have been caused apprehension of serious violence.’
District Judge David Wain said the ‘natural meaning’ of the music video was a reference to firearms.
Finding Mr Abdirizak guilty, he said: ‘Having heard the defendant’s evidence I am satisfied that this was the intended meaning of the communication rather than an attempt to promote his music.’
Mr Abdirizak will be sentenced on February 12 for the charge of sending a message of a menacing character contrary to the Communications Act 2003.
He will also be sentenced for possession of cannabis and a racially aggravated public order offence.
He has been granted conditional bail until then due to the court’s concern at ‘hidden disabilities, including mental health issues, that need to be explored.
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