A former grammar school pupil who snuck away from a family holiday in Turkey to join ISIS as a sniper has been jailed for life.
Shabazz Suleman, 27, from High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, disappeared at the end of the 2014 trip before emailing his parents.
“I'm not brainwashed or anything. I've been planning this for months," he told his distraught family, adding, “The brothers are SOOOOO nice."
Suleman was arrested at Heathrow Airport on 29 September 2021 after he tried to return to the UK and charged with a string of terror offences.
He was sentenced on Friday at the Old Bailey after he pleaded guilty to preparing acts of terrorism in April.
The court heard how Suleman sent images of decapitations to his school friends on WhatsApp before joining Islamic State fighters in 2014 at the age of 18.
Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson told the court: “Whilst on a family holiday to Turkey in August 2014, that the defendant tried to cross into Syria in order to join IS.
“His ambition, as described at that time, was to become a sniper. He was initially held captive by Turkish forces before choosing to be part of a prisoner swap they held with IS.
“He joined IS and performed a number of roles for them. This included becoming a part of the military police, undertaking armed guard duty.”
He also ran social media accounts promoting IS and their warped ideology, with handles like @JihadiHipster and 'UtopianIslamist'.
School friends told of how he shared twisted decapitation videos in a WhatsApp group before he left to join the terror organisation.
Mr Atkinson said: “They were images of decapitated bodies with the IS flag, a male holding a head and the body of a decapitated male.”
Others in the group objected and asked why he had shared such shocking images.
He replied that they were: "just dead thugs... Jihadis don't like thugs and criminals...accused of rape, drug dealing etc.".
"I only have those pics because I'm following the situation in Syria not because I have an obsession with headless ppl lol".
However, once Suleman was posted to the IS-controlled area of Raqqa, where he witnessed fierce fighting, he reportedly lost his taste for life under IS.
Mr Atkinson said: “It is there that he saw the reality of IS, they are cannon fodder and sent there to die.
“He described a battle which he insisted he did not fight in; he was in the reserve. The other squads were killed.
“This, he indicated, was the turning point in his attitude towards IS and he saw the true purpose of IS.”
After five or six months he sought to leave IS but was not allowed to do so. After the terror group collapsed he was taken captive by a faction of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), before being transferred to Turkey and then Pakistan.
Suleman admitted preparing for acts of terrorism and was given a life sentence with a minimum term of nine years and six months
He was also charged with being a member of IS, a banned organisation, between 2014 and 2017, and receiving training in the use of firearms.
These two charges were left to lie on file after the prosecution said Suleman's guilty plea addressed them.
