Qur’an burners let off

Seven British men burned a Holy Qur’an in a Gateshead pub car park last year, filming it and then posting the video online. However the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) representative Wendy Williams said that they had not found enough evidence to prove the men have committed any crime therefore no trial will be held. “This was a serious incident which the vast majority of people will rightly find repugnant,” she said.

The men were arrested last September after they published their film on the internet. They were probably obeying Terry Jones, the US pastor who had threatened to burn the Muslims’ holy book on September 11 last year.

The video showed a group of men who had covered their faces, pouring petrol on a book, torching it and then applauding when the book started burning. The CPS representative said that they had not discovered who could be the possible recorder of the video.

“For these reasons we have decided that no one should be prosecuted for an offence arising out of this incident, based on the evidence provided to us,” Williams said. “I must stress that our policy is to prosecute racist and religious crime fairly, firmly and robustly, but this can be done only in cases where there is sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction,” she claimed.