Terrorist leader Anjem Choudary faces life sentence

Hate preacher Anjem Choudary who has inspired a generation of jihadis is facing another jail sentence for directing a banned terrorist group.

Choudary, 57, revelled in his title of ‘number one radicaliser in Britain’ as he instructed his followers how best to ‘terrorise the enemy’.

The trained lawyer took a ‘caretaker’ role with the banned militant network Al-Muhajiroun (ALM) in 2014 while its ‘spiritual leader’ Omar Bakri Mohammed, was in jail in the Lebanon.

Choudary delivered online lectures and classes to the ‘North American’ branch of Al-Muhajiroun, a New York based organisation called the Islamic Thinkers Society (ITS).

His evil followers include fusilier Lee Rigby’s killers and Islamic State executioner Siddhartha Dhar, also known as Jihadi Sid.

Choudary told jurors he has never run a terrorist organisation and was just campaigning ‘for people who are oppressed.’

But he accepted Woolwich has become ‘synonymous with the death of Lee Rigby’ and admitted he officiated at the marriage of one of the killers.

Choudary denied but was convicted by a jury at Woolwich Crown Court of directing a terrorist organisation and addressing meetings to encourage support for a proscribed organisation.

Canadian ‘follower’ Khaled Hussain, 29, was also found guilty of membership of ALM by the jury.

They were remanded in custody ahead of sentence on July 30.

Choudary has become one of the most influential and dangerous radicalisers in the UK in the last two decades.

In 2006 he was convicted of failing to give notice of a public procession after organising a protest against cartoons of the prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper.

His ‘disciple’ Mizanur Rahman was jailed for incitement to murder over the protest after carrying banners, which said ‘annihilate those who insult Islam’ and ‘behead those who insult Islam’.

ALM has been linked to a string of atrocities, including the 7 July 2005 London bombings.

Lee Rigby’s murderers, Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, had both attended events organised by ALM.

The Muslim converts butchered the 25-year-old soldier as he walked towards Woolwich Barracks.

Adebolajo was an associate of Choudary and was one of four men arrested outside the Old Bailey during Rahman’s trial in 2006.

Ten years later Choudary’s supporters chanted ‘Allahu Akbar’ outside the same court as he and Rahman both received five and a half years for inviting support for Islamic State.

He was released from prison on 19 October 2018 but made subject to up to 25 conditions while on licence.

Choudary was arrested following a dawn raid by Met Police counter terrorism detectives last July while Khaled Hussain was apprehended at Heathrow.

Unbeknown to the pair ITS had been infiltrated by two undercover officers, referred to in court as OP488 and OP377.

Several online lectures delivered by Choudary were attended and recorded by the undercover officers.

Jurors heard extracts delivered to ITS by Choudary in which he ‘sought to teach a strict interpretation of the Islamic faith’.

On 19 June 2022, a recorded online session sees Choudary instructing his followers how best to ‘terrorise the enemy’.

He asked: ‘Which you think would be more terrorising for the enemy? A horse galloping over the hill or a scud missile coining towards them?

‘Obviously a scud missile, if they can see it, it will be more terrorising.’

Later on in the same online session Choudary gloated over a surge of natural disasters happening America.

He said: ‘Some of the hurricanes, you know, and I named some as well you know: hurricane Osama, hurricane Ali. Glory to be to Allah!’

In a previous lecture delivered and recorded on 12 June 2022, Choudary appeared to revel in his reputation as Britain’s ‘number one radicaliser.

‘They said to me, they said you are the number one radicaliser in Britain they said, Glory to Allah.

‘You know they expected me to be unhappy with that; I’m like Alhamdulillah, that is a badge of honour for me’.

A lecture was also delivered by Choudary on the anniversary of 9/11 which he started with a teaching from the Quran that to anger the disbeliever or injure the enemy is a ‘good deed’.’

On 16 February 2023, Choudary said the ‘jihad is obliged upon us’, instructing ITS members to ‘fight, you know, with your wealth, with your body, with your money, everything.’

He later referred to ‘the fighting to expand the frontiers of the Islamic State, to take the territory, implement the Shariah which is the original Jihad’, a court heard.

Tom Little, prosecuting, said ‘this message to those attending was clear and would clearly be understood. It was not a legitimate religious freedom of expression and it was not peaceful’.

The prosecutor added that a ‘Q&A section’ conducted by Choudary on 26 February 2023 saw him teaching that ‘shedding blood was permissible to escape kaffir law if the capability to do so existed.

‘Again we say that his message to what was a closed group was clear, he is still using his language with some care but what he did not know was that some of those listening were UCOs’.

Covert audio recordings captured from within Choudary’s home address and recovered by UCOs were also played during the trial.

Jurors heard Choudary reassuring his wife, Rubana Akhtar, that he didn’t ‘say anything dodgy’, and on 22 March 2023 he told her that the impact of Al-Muhajiroun was ‘global’.

The father-of-four added: ‘Al-Muhajiroun has gone in history…the impact was phenomenal, global, look at the impact we had in Belgium, in Belgium, in Holland, in, in Finland, in Estonia’.

The covert audio recordings also picked up a ‘significant conversation’ between Anjem Choudary and Omar Bakri Mohammed in April 2023.

‘The call is significant because Anjem Choudary talks about the establishment of a khilafa, and refers to Mullah Omar and Al Qaeda, and also Abu Bakr Baghdadi and the so-called Islamic State,’ said Mr Little.

Paul Hynes KC, defending Choudary, said in his closing speech the conversations with Bakri Muhammad were just ‘two old guys shooting the breeze.’

He said: ’Anjem Choudary says to his friend and his mentor and someone to whom he looks very much to for religious, spiritual and personal advice, ‘well sheikh, how are you doing?’

‘Omar Bakri Muhammad says, ‘I dyed my beard’

‘(They are) getting straight down to the business of terrorism, aren’t they?’, Mr Hynes added, sarcastically.

Founded by Omar Bakri Muhammad, ALM was proscribed in this country in January 2010.

In its many guises, including Islam4UK, the stated aim was to implement Sharia law in Britain.

The group even put out ‘incendiary statements’ calling for Buckingham Palace to be turned into a Mosque and Nelson’s Column to be destroyed.

Mr Little added: ‘Terrorist organisations for reasons that you may think are obvious, may lurk in the shadows, seeking to avoid detection, seeking to avoid investigation and seeking to avoid prosecution.

‘We suggest that Anjem Choudary never gave up, he bided, we say, his time.

‘These two defendants were members of and belonged to ALM.

‘They both share that warped and twisted mindset.

‘Anjem Choudary directed when he was able to, and for a period of years, this terrorist organisation ALM and more recently he encouraged support for it, given to the Islamic Thinkers Society.

‘He was we say a longstanding member of that organisation.’

Choudary, of Ilford, and Hussain, of Canada, denied membership of a proscribed organisation.

Choudary also denied addressing meetings to encourage support for a proscribed organisation.