UK: Student's flagellator was not an 'offensive weapon'

It offends ME - especially after reading the story.

A.) What is a devout Shia Muslim doing in a nightclub in the first place?
B.) Have you ever heard of a knuckle duster doubling as a belt buckle?
C.) If this wasn't intended for use as a weapon, I'll eat my hat.

From The Telegraph: (h/t FReeper Steelfish)

Sacred implement --->

Mohsin Khan, 21, who said he had been beating himself regularly with them since the age of six, had been driving to a West End nightclub with a friend when he was pulled over as part of a routine police check in London's Charing Cross Road.

His car was searched and the flagellator - a handle with five metal chains each tipped with a sharp 10in blade - was found under his seat.

Officers also discovered a knuckle-duster in a door pocket.

<--- Knuckle duster.

The second-year law student, from Birmingham, was subsequently charged with two counts of possessing an offensive weapon on January 30 last year.

But he told those trying him at London's Southwark Crown Court that the flagellator was a ''sacred implement'' called a Zanjeer.

...

However, they convicted him of a mirror-image count involving the knuckle-duster, after rejecting his defence that it doubled as a belt-buckle which he had taken off because it was digging into his stomach.

Khan, who insisted he was not a violent person and avoided physical confrontations, showed no reaction as the verdicts were returned.

But his mother, who was sitting in the public gallery, burst into tears.

Read more about Zanjeer Zani here: