Man, 22, jailed for sharing videos of ISIS beheadings
ABIRMINGHAM man has been jailed for seven-anda-half years for encouraging acts of terrorism.
Rayan Saab, 22, sent footage of ISIS beheadings and executions to other people over social media which was deemed to glorify it.
Saab sent the media to a fellow extremist and an undercover police officer.
Saab, of Bloomsbury Walk, Nechells, was convicted of four charges of disseminating terrorist publications between April 2019 and December 2020 following a trial at Birmingham Crown Court.
He admitted one charge of disseminating material likely to be useful in the preparation of terrorism.
Judge Paul Farrer QC said, by early 2020, Saab held an extreme mindset and had sent a number of books glorifying the actions of Islamic State to another individual with a similar beliefs.
He was arrested on May 15 but his views remained unchanged and he then starting sending videos to the undercover officer.
They included descriptions of suicide missions, how to make a car bomb, showed Islamic fighters in action and prisoners being shot or decapitated.
“Throughout the course of the
indictment you had contact with other extremists and deliberately made use of encrypted communication,” said the judge.
Serena Gates, prosecuting, said between March and October 2020 this defendant used social media to send out extremist Islamic videos and documents to other people.
She said the videos and documents concerned terrorist activity, predominantly related to Islamic State, and showed graphic violence and executions designed to promote the ideological cause of the group.
Miss Gates said that by sending them out it had been Saab’s intention to “encourage others to engage in terrorism. That is what the defendant intended”.
She said that police raided Saab’s home last January where they searched the property and recovered a number of electronic devices, including an iPhone, a laptop and an external hard drive.
They contained evidence of Saab’s contact with two others who he had shared extremist Islamic material with on social media.
Miss Gates said the defendant had also communicated with others in chatgroups and had forwarded documents with titles including Black Flags from Syria, Martyrs from Syria and Black Flags from Palestine.
He had marked the documents to be read by ‘trusted Muslims’ which were ones with extremist tendencies, she said
In the autumn of last year, she said, Saab had communicated with an undercover police officer who was posing as a French Muslim woman.
Catherine Oborne, defending, said: “He is an immature young man who spent the vast majority of his time online playing video games and communicated with people he thought were friends but most of them he had never met.
“He accepts that what he did was both dangerous and stupid.”