Abdulrahman Alcharbati guilty of IS Facebook posts

Abdulrahman Alcharbati was found guilty by jurors at Newcastle Crown Court

A civil engineer has been found guilty of sharing terrorism videos on Facebook.

Abdulrahman Alcharbati had denied making 70 Facebook posts promoting a "wealth of Islamic State material".

But jurors at Newcastle Crown Court found the 32-year-old guilty of six counts of sharing terrorist material.

Alcharbati, of Westholme Gardens, Benwell, was also found guilty of possessing a bomb-making manual. He is due to be sentenced on 14 December.

'Very offensive'

The jury had been shown a video that Alcharbati posted showing captured Syrian soldiers being beaten to death by a mob.

Another video posted by the Syrian-born defendant showed the aftermath and "celebrations" of a suicide bombing, the court heard.

Det Supt Simon Atkinson, head of investigations at the North East Counter Terrorism Unit, said the opinions of Alcharbati "were very offensive".

He said his team had "trawled" a large number of Alcharbati's posts and warned that terrorist organisations "can exploit and prey on vulnerable people" online.

Mr Atkinson said: "(Alcharbati) was in fact supporting terrorist organisations and, whilst we see that the internet is a very good forum for posting lots of things, it can be used for such postings as well that can be of an illegal nature.

"There will be repercussions, these are serious offences that people are committing.

"They are actually supporting terrorist organisations. Even by retweeting or reposting things that they found on the internet they are supporting terrorist organisations."