British Muslim preacher Anjem Choudary has been sentenced to life in prison for directing a “terrorist organisation”.
Choudary, 57, was convicted last week of directing al-Muhajiroun (ALM), which was banned as a “terrorist organisation” more than a decade ago.
Judge Mark Wall told Choudary at London’s Woolwich Crown Court on Tuesday that organisations such as ALM “normalise violence in support of an ideological cause” through online meetings.
“Their existence gives individuals who are members of them the courage to commit acts which otherwise they might not do. They drive wedges between people who otherwise could and would live together in peaceful coexistence,” he said.
Wall announced a life sentence for the British-Pakistani preacher with a minimum term of 28 years before he would be eligible for parole.
Prosecutor Tom Little said Choudary became “the caretaker emir” of ALM after its leader Omar Bakri Mohammed was jailed in Lebanon in 2014.
Choudary’s lawyer, Paul Hynes, argued that the group was “little more than a husk of an organisation” and almost all attacks linked to it had already occurred.
Police in Britain, the United States and Canada conducted a joint investigation and gathered evidence that Choudary was running and directing ALM via online lectures with followers based in New York.
Prosecutors said the group has operated under many names, including the New York-based Islamic Thinkers Society, which Choudary has spoken to.
The Islamic Thinkers Society was ALM’s US branch, said New York Deputy Police Commissioner Rebecca Weiner, who called the case historic.
Choudary was convicted with one of his followers, Khaled Hussein, who prosecutors said was a dedicated supporter of the group.
Hussein, 29, of Edmonton, Canada, was convicted of membership of a proscribed organisation and sentenced to five years in prison.
The two were arrested a year ago after Hussein landed at Heathrow Airport.
Choudary was previously imprisoned in 2016 for encouraging support for ISIL (ISIS) before being released in 2018 after serving half of his five-and-a-half-year sentence.
The group ALM, which emerged in the late 1990s, has been linked to several attacks both at home and abroad.
