LONDON (AP) — Radical British preacher Anjem Choudary was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison for directing a banned terrorist group that a judge said had put many lives at risk.
Choudary, 57, was convicted last week in Woolwich Crown Court for directing the radical Muslim group al-Muhajiroun, or ALM, being a member of the banned organization and for drumming up support for it.
Justice Mark Wall said Choudary was front and center in running a terrorist organization” that “encouraged young men into radical activity.”
ALM was outlawed by the British government in 2010 as a group involved in committing, preparing for or promoting terrorism.
“Your actions while directing Al-Muhajiroun ran the risk of causing or contributing to the deaths of very many people,” Wall said. “In addition, by running an organization such as Al-Muhajiroun, you contributed in a significant way to the fear of terrorist attack by radical Islamic organizations which then existed in this country and abroad.”
Choudary, who was previously convicted of supporting the Islamic State group and sent to prison for more than five years, denied at trial that he promoted ALM through his lectures, saying ALM no longer existed.
Defense lawyer Paul Hynes said that by the time Choudary started directing ALM it was “little more than a husk of an organization” and he was not “gathering the masses to join.”
Choudary stepped in to lead ALM after Omar Bakri Muhammad, the group’s founder, was imprisoned in Lebanon between 2014 and March 2023, prosecutor Tom Little said.
Before he was charged in 2015 under the Terrorism Act for supporting the Islamic State, the London-born preacher had provoked outrage by protesting outside the U.S. Embassy on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks and burning memorial poppies on the annual Remembrance Day honoring slain service members.
The judge noted “chilling” evidence at trial about how Choudary denied the existence of the Holocaust and joked about Sept. 11.
“I do not sentence you for holding those views, but the fact that you genuinely hold such extreme views coupled with your history of unlawful behavior is an indication of the danger you pose into the future,” Wall said.
Prosecutors said the ALM has operated under many names, including the New York-based Islamic Thinkers Society, which Choudary lectured to.
The Islamic Thinkers Society was ALM’s U.S. branch, said New York Police Deputy Commissioner Rebecca Weiner, who called the case historic. The group was infiltrated by U.S. law enforcement officers who took part in the investigation with counterparts in Britain and Canada.
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 sentenced to five years in prison for membership of a proscribed organization.
Under terms of the sentence, Choudary must serve at least 28 years behind bars.
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