Radical UK Islamist preacher Choudary jailed for life for terrorism offences

By Sam Tobin

LONDON (Reuters) -British radical Islamist preacher Anjem Choudary, whose followers have been linked to numerous plots around the world, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Tuesday for directing a terrorist organisation.

Choudary, 57, was convicted last week of directing al-Muhajiroun, which was banned as a terrorist organisation more than a decade ago, and encouraging others to support the proscribed group.

"Organisations such as yours normalise violence in support of an ideological cause," Judge Mark Wall told Choudary at London's Woolwich Crown Court.

"Their existence gives individuals who are members of them the courage to commit acts which otherwise they might not do. They drive wedges between people who otherwise could and would live together in peaceful coexistence."

Wall imposed a life sentence on Choudary with a minimum term of 28 years before he can be eligible for parole, less just over the year that he has spent in custody since his arrest.

Once Britain's most high-profile Islamist preacher, Choudary drew attention for praising the men responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and saying he wanted to convert Buckingham Palace into a mosque.

He was previously imprisoned in Britain in 2016 for encouraging support for Islamic State, before being released in 2018 after serving half of his five-and-a-half-year sentence.

Prosecutor Tom Little said on Tuesday that Choudary became "the caretaker emir" of al-Muhajiroun after fellow Islamist preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed was jailed in Lebanon in 2014.

Choudary's lawyer Paul Hynes argued that al-Muhajiroun was "little more than a husk of an organisation" and that almost all terrorist acts linked to the group had already taken place.

But Wall said al-Muhajiroun was "a radical organisation intent on spreading sharia law to as much of the world as possible, using violent means where necessary".

Choudary stood trial alongside Canadian citizen Khaled Hussein, 29, who was arrested on the same day as Choudary in 2023 when he arrived on a flight at Heathrow Airport.

Hussein was found guilty of membership of a proscribed organisation and sentenced to five years in prison.

(Reporting by Sam Tobin; editing by Michael Holden)