Skip to main content

Man convicted of driverless car terror plot in UK

A man has been found guilty in a UK court of plotting to use a driverless car for terrorism. Farhad Salah was convicted at Sheffield Crown Court after prosecutors argued that he was planning to put an explosive device in a vehicle which could then be controlled remotely. He will be sentenced on 24 July after the jury found him guilty by a majority of 10 to two. His co-defendant Andy Star was found not guilty of the same offence at the trial. It is the second time that both men, who are Iraqi nationals,
July 16, 2019 Read time: 2 mins

A man has been found guilty in a UK court of plotting to use a driverless car for terrorism.

Farhad Salah was convicted at Sheffield Crown Court after prosecutors argued that he was planning to put an explosive device in a vehicle which could then be controlled remotely.

He will be sentenced on 24 July after the jury found him guilty by a majority of 10 to two.

His co-defendant Andy Star was found not guilty of the same offence at the trial.

It is the second time that both men, who are Iraqi nationals, have been tried on terrorism charges – a different jury was unable to reach a verdict on them last year.

Prosecutors said that Salah sent a Facebook message saying: “My only attempt is to find a way to carry out martyrdom operation with cars without driver.”

Salah (who lived in Sheffield) and Star (who had a chip shop in Chesterfield) were arrested in police raids on their homes in December 2017.

Counter-terrorism police said Salah was a “very real risk to the safety of the public in the UK” but no intended target has been identified.

Related Content

  • On-road and in-vehicle are not in competition
    May 18, 2018
    The integrity and accuracy of data that can be verified by weigh-in-motion technology has been improving for decades – and the range of WIM applications is increasing at a tremendous pace. Chris Koniditsiotis, president of the International Society for Weigh-in-Motion (ISWIM) and CEO of Transport Certification Australia (TCA), began his career in 1985 as a pavements engineer. “When I joined this portfolio, the integrity, accuracy, and sampling frequency of mass information delivered at best an estimate, us
  • Speed reduction measures - carrot or stick?
    January 23, 2012
    In Sweden, marketing company DDB Stockholm employed a mock speed camera as part of a promotional campaign for automotive manufacturer Volkswagen. The result was worldwide online interest and promotion of the debate over excessive speed to the national level. A developing trend in traffic management policy is to look at how to induce road users to modify their behaviour by incentivising change rather than forcing it through the application of penalties. There have been several studies conducted into this; an
  • Hani Mahmassani, ITS 'rock star' academic, passes away
    July 18, 2025
    Distinguished Northwestern professor was mentor to many practitioners
  • Air quality tops transportation agendas
    November 17, 2014
    Colin Sowman catches up on some of the latest research around outdoor pollution and looks at options available to authorities in areas of poor air quality. Iair quality hasn’t already reached the top of the agenda in transportation department meetings in your area, it probably soon will with national, trans-national and even global bodies calling for authorities to reduce pollution levels.