UK Muslim cleric Anjem Choudary found guilty of supporting the Islamic State

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2016/08/uk-muslim-cleric-anjem-choudary-found-guilty-of-supporting-the-islamic-state

August 16, 2016 2:10 pm By Robert Spencer 18 Comments

He inspired at least 100 jihadis in the UK. He called openly for the murder of Pamela Geller. The British government let him run around loose for years, while banning me from the country for opposing Choudary and his ilk. And Twitter and YouTube, true to form as always, would not remove his posts.


“Radical Islamist Preacher Anjem Choudary Found Guilty Of Supporting ISIS,” Reuters, August 16, 2016:

LONDON, Aug 16 (Reuters) – Anjem Choudary, Britain’s most high-profile Islamist preacher whose followers have been linked to numerous plots across the world, has been found guilty of inviting support for Islamic State.
Choudary, 49, was convicted at London’s Old Bailey court of using online lectures and messages to encourage support for the banned group which controls large parts of Syria and Iraq.
Notorious in Britain where the tabloids denounce him as a hate preacher, he is also well-known abroad, making regular TV appearances in the wake of attacks by Islamist militants to blame Western foreign policy for targeting Muslims.
“These men have stayed just within the law for many years, but there is no one within the counter terrorism world that has any doubts of the influence that they have had, the hate they have spread and the people that they have encouraged to join terrorist organizations,” said Dean Haydon, head of London police’s Counter Terrorism Command.
Prosecutors said that in postings on social media, Choudary and his close associate Mizanur Rahman, 33, had pledged allegiance to the “caliphate” declared by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and said Muslims had a duty to obey or provide support to him.
Both men, who had denied the terrorism charges and claimed the case was politically motivated, were found guilty last month but their convictions could not be reported until Tuesday for legal reasons. They are due to be sentenced in September and could face a jail sentence of up to 10 years each.
Choudary, the former head of the now banned organization al-Muhajiroun, became infamous for praising the men responsible for the 9/11 attacks on the United States and saying he wanted to convert Buckingham Palace into a mosque….