A man who recruited al Qaeda members over the internet, has been jailed for 12 years.
“Aabid Khan was very much the ‘Mr Fix-it’ of the group,” says Karen Jones, from the Crown Prosecution Service Counter Terrorism Division.
“He preyed on vulnerable young people and turned them into recruits to his cause, using internet chat rooms to lure them in then incite them to fight.”
One of those he recruited was Hammaad Munshi, 18, who was also convicted, making him the youngest Briton ever to be found guilty of terrorism crimes according to the CPS.
He was just 15 when he met Khan and 16 when he was arrested by anti-terrorism detectives at his home in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, when he returned from school.
Munshi used the internet to circulate terrorism material including technical documents on how to make napalm and homemade explosives.
Police said Khan and Muhammad, both from Bradford, possessed some of the most significant propaganda videos released by al Qaeda. Khan also arranged for those he recruited to travel to Pakistan for terrorism training and “worldwide battle”.
“While these men may not have been actively planning acts of terrorism themselves, they sought to incite others for terrorist purposes, promoting al Qaeda ideology and training programmes,” says Detective Chief Superintendent John Parkinson, head of the Leeds Counter Terrorism Unit.
The men were convicted of possessing articles and making records of information connected with terrorism.
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