Reform UK leader Nigel Farage told a court he feared for his life after a migrant allegedly threatened to shoot him in a TikTok video, sparking security concerns.
In a post that a lawmaker described as "pretty chilling," 26-year-old Afghan Fayaz Khan, who immigrated to Stockholm, Sweden in 2019, is accused of threatening to assassinate Mr. Farage last October.
On Tuesday, a jury at Southwark Crown Court was informed that Mr. Khan had a significant online following thanks to his TikTok videos, which he posted under the moniker Madapasa.
Prosecutor Peter Ratliff began the hearing by stating that Mr. Khan's films from the fall of last year concentrated on his attempts to enter the UK by small boat.
The trip of an illegal migrant, a film that Mr. Farage posted to YouTube on October 12 of last year, included Mr. Khan and made reference to "young males of fighting age coming into our country about whom we know very little."
The prosecution said Mr Khan responded with a video, which was played to the jury, in which Khan appears to say:
“You not know me. I come to England because I want to marry with your sister. You not know me. [sic]
Don’t talk about me more. Delete the video.
I’m coming to England. I’m going to pop, pop, pop.”
In order to "emphasize he wasn't joking," Mr. Ratliff told jurors that Mr. Khan made "gun gestures with his hand" while he said, "pop, pop, pop." He also headbutted the camera and pointed to an AK47 tattoo on his face.
Detective Constable Liam Taylor said the court that Mr. Khan was apprehended on October 31 after reaching the UK after livestreaming his passage across the English Channel in a tiny boat from France.
"I was genuinely worried given his proximity to guns and love of guns,"
Mr. Farage said of Mr. Khan's video, calling it "pretty chilling."
It was unusual, according to Mr. Farage, to see people on social media threatening to come for you directly and explaining how they would do it.
What evidence was shown in court from the TikTok video?
In court, there was a TikTok video that was presented in evidence of Fayaz Khan making what appeared to be gun gestures, say threatening things such as "pop, pop, pop," which Nigel Farage described as "pretty chilling." The video had hundreds of thousands of views and was relevant to the case because it was posted after Farage had posted a video of Khan attempting to come to the United Kingdom by small boat.
The court would have been concerned with the authenticity, context, and content of the video, and the court would have used some of the same methods that are used for social media evidence.
The threatening gestures and threatening words in the video were key evidence which formed the basis of the charges that he made a threat to kill, and that he used a public communication network to cause anxiety.