A Thornton Heath man accused of sharing a terrorist video featuring ISIS fighters boasted of "working to establish an Islamic State in the UK," a court heard.

Posing under the username "Cyber-Sultan," Mohammed Alam sent the footage - described by one anti-terror officer as a "ready-made recruiting tool" - to two chatroom users in July last year, a jury at Kingston Crown Court was told.

Mr Alam, 31, of Highbury Avenue, was arrested on December 22 on suspicion of sharing terrorist material after detectives swooped on a business address in south London and seized a laptop and a mobile phone.

Chatroom logs shown to the jury allegedly show Mr Alam asking users to watch the video "regarding ISIS in Prophesy [sic]", produced by controversial Turkish thinker Adnan Oktar about the ongoing Syrian civil war.

In the logs Mr Alam claimed he was working to "establish an Islamic State within the UK" and rebuked his sceptical interlocutors for a perceived lack of faith.

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He said: "I will never sell out my religion to please the kuffar [unbeliever]."

But today his lawyer maintained the video did not endorse terrorism - despite it featuring images of ISIS fighters as well as the the groups's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani.

Mozammel Hossain, defending, described Mr Oktar - also known as Harun Yahya - as the "Richard Dawkins of Islam" and someone who had publicly criticised ISIS's barbaric practises.

The video was simply an explanation of an ancient prophecy by the prophet Muhammed about the future of Syria, said Mr Hossai, rather than a call to arms for would-be terrorist recruits.

Cross examining Detective Constable Rob Dowling, the lawyer asked whether there was "anything in that video that glorifies terrorism and ISIS".

Det Con Dowling said: "No, they're talking about their brutality and talking about them doing bad. But in the context of prophesied events and the end of days [and] this existential battle... that makes people want to go and join.

"Whilst this video has not been made to glorify ISIL and terrorism in general...I think what has been produced here, inadvertently maybe, is a ready-made recruiting tool."

During a cross-examination that regularly saw the jury appear bemused by discussions of obscure Islamic theology, Det Con Dowling said he was unable to say for certain what message Mr Oktar had meant to convey in the video.

He said: "I don't know what he was trying to do. He's an eccentric, controversial figure."

At one point during the trial on Tuesday, Judge Peter Lodder QC was forced to remind Mr Hossai that Det Con Dowling "can't speak for every member" of ISIS when trying parse the potential meanings of the video.

As Mr Alam sat impassively in the dock, his lawyer made frequent attempts to characterise the video as a set of theological talking points, rather than propaganda that might be used to incite terrorism in the West.

Mr Hossai said: "Do you accept the conflict in Syria is between two groups within Islam?"

DC Dowling replied: "I think it's a lot more complicated than that."

Mr Alam denies a charge of distributing a terrorist publication. The trial continues.

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