Copycat terror attack pair jailed

LEEDS: Two farRight extremists who encouraged copycat terror attacks in the aftermath of the New Zealand mosque shootings have been jailed in the UK.

Morgan Seales (20) and Gabriele Longo (26) communicated on a WhatsApp group set up shortly after the attacks in Christchurch on March 15 which left 51 people dead.

The purpose of the group chat was to encourage users to emulate the accused gunman with further attacks on Muslims, Leeds Crown Court heard.

Within 90 minutes of joining the group, Longo was offering to post files from his online library of bombmaking instructions, which he then did the following day.

When one contributor wrote ‘‘let’s kill some Muslims’’, Longo replied: ‘‘Or Jews.’’

In a separate post, Seales wrote: ‘‘The best time to attack a mosque is Friday prayers or a wedding. Everyone there at once.’’

The court heard Seales, of South Shields, had first come to the notice of authorities in 2017 with a Twitter post which displayed the flag of banned neoNazi terror group National Action.

He was arrested in February last year on suspicion of taking screenshots of recipes for explosives.

However, police decided not to prosecute Seales, described as ‘‘vulnerable and socially isolated’’, and tried to deradicalise him through the voluntary Prevent counterterror programme.

In sentencing, Judge Tom Bayliss QC said that in reality the programme had little or no effect as Seales was arrested for the Christchurch messages and the recovery of his cellphone led to officers tracing Longo.

Judge Bayliss said Longo, of Crawley, West Sussex, was ‘‘something of an enigma’’ as little was known about him but he was satisfied he was ‘‘deeply radicalised’’.

Both defendants were convicted by a jury of encouraging terrorism, possessing material for terrorist purposes and collecting or making a record of information useful to a terrorist.

Longo was also found guilty of disseminating terrorist publications.

Longo was jailed for six years and Seales was jailed for four years.

‘‘Both of you were in danger of indoctrinating others in that group chat. There were some very young people, some as young as 14,’’ Judge Bayliss told the pair. — PA