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Jihadis jailed for spreading speeches by hate preacher who inspired terrorists including London Bridge attacker

Muhammad Abdur Raheem Kamali and Mohammed Abdul Ahad were jailed for disseminating terrorist publications: Metropolitan Police
Muhammad Abdur Raheem Kamali and Mohammed Abdul Ahad were jailed for disseminating terrorist publications: Metropolitan Police

Two men have been jailed for spreading extremist propaganda calling on Muslims to wage violent jihad around the world from their homes in Britain.

Muhammad Abdur Raheem Kamali and Mohammed Abdul Ahad edited and uploaded speeches by hate preacher Sheikh Faisal to a website and social media pages.

Police said the material promoted terrorism and encouraged people to join Isis in Syria, but The Independent has confirmed the website remains online.

It claims Muslims must “hate disbelievers” and “fight them,” while urging followers to spread their beliefs and contact others of the same faith in British prisons.

Sheikh Faisal’s followers included two of the 7 July 2005 bombers, a terrorist jailed for conspiring with the 9/11 hijackers and shoe bomber Richard Reid.

London Bridge attacker Usman Khan had his phone number when he was arrested over the London Stock Exchange bomb plot in 2010, and Streatham knifeman Sudesh Amman is believed to have used his teachings, The Times reported.

Mohissunnath Chowdhury, who launched a sword attack on police outside Buckingham Palace in 2017 and planned more attacks after being freed from prison, also cited Sheikh Faisal as an inspiration.

The website contains speeches by Sheikh Faisal, as well as other extremist preachers who have inspired terror plots, and solicits donations for the extremist.

Police said that Kamali, 31, of Rochdale, and Ahad, 38, of London, were two of the website's "main administrators and contributors”.

The Old Bailey heard the pair recorded Sheikh Faisal’s speeches, then transcribed, edited and prepared them for upload to the website.

“A significant number of these speeches glorified terrorist organisations including al-Qaeda and Isis, and encouraged support for acts of terrorism,” a spokesperson for Greater Manchester Police said.

Kamali and Ahad first came to police attention in 2016, when counter-terror police officers in northeast England were investigating a 20-year-old woman over the website and a linked Facebook page.

Investigators discovered that Kamali and Ahad were web managers for the project, and the pair were simultaneously arrested March 2017.

Kamali, who police said was the owner and lead administrator of the website since 2011, was convicted of four counts of disseminating terrorist publications and jailed for four-and-a-half years.

Ahad was also sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison after being found guilty of four counts of disseminating terrorist publications and one of possessing a document useful for an attack.

Both men were handed an extended licence period and a court order meaning they will have to notify police of changes to their circumstances for 10 years after they are released from prison.

Commander Richard Smith, head of the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command, called the pair “online publishers of toxic ideologies which promoted terrorism and encouraged its readership to join Isis in Syria”.

“We take the dissemination of this type of material incredibly seriously and we will prosecute anyone involved in such illegal activity,” he added.

Born Trevor William Forrest, the hate preacher was born in Jamaica and converted to Islam before moving to Saudi Arabia and then the UK.

He was the imam of Brixton Mosque in London in the early 1990s before being ejected for his extremism, but continued to speak to audiences around the UK.

In 2003, Sheikh Faisal was jailed for urging Muslims to kill Jews, Christians, Americans, Hindus and other “disbelievers”.

Dismissing an appeal against conviction the following year, the Court of Appeal said speeches made to crowds of young Muslim men had been recorded on tapes, which were distributed in bookshops.

“In his speeches, the appellant encouraged his listeners to kill,” judges said. “He asserted that it was compulsory for all Muslims to undertake jihad and that the meaning of that word was the killing of those who did not believe in the Islamic faith.”

Sheikh Faisal was deported to Jamaica half way through his sentence and is currently in prison while fighting extradition to the US on new terror charges, which he denies.

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