Guilty, Islamist in Oxford Street truck bomb rant
Disciple of hate preacher Choudary
MEMBERS of a terror cell led by hate preacher Anjem Choudary face jail after one of them called for 40 trucks of explosives to be driven down Oxford Street. Mohammed Sufiyan Choudry, who was convicted yesterday, had called for Muslims to ‘take revenge’ and spoke of ‘blood gushing’ in speeches close to the anniversary of the 7/7 attacks.
An undercover police officer who infiltrated a chapter of Anjem Choudary’s banned Al-Muhajiroun group secretly recorded hate speeches over 20 months.
The Old Bailey heard that, in a Methodist church and a marquee in a back garden in Luton, up to 80 people – including children – gathered to hear the group praise Islamic State and urge them to fight in Syria.
In one rant on July 2, 2015, Mohammed Choudry said: ‘We’ve been suffering for so long but today we’ve been able to take our own revenge. Imagine an army, imagine the Muslims when they’re together like that you don’t need huge numbers.
‘Imagine tomorrow 40 trucks, were to drive down Oxford Street full of explosives, you tell me who’s going to rise, who’s going to stand against those people?’ His father Iftikar, a former engineer, set up the first mosque in Theresa May’s constituency of Maidenhead, Berkshire, which she has visited several times.
Mohammed Choudry, 23, said his father was a follower of terrorist Omar Bakri Muhammad, and had taken him to at least 100 Islamic conferences from the age of 13. Other attendees at the meetings included Shazib and Junead Khan. Delivery driver Junead, 25, was jailed for life last May for plotting to kill a US soldier in the UK, while his uncle Shazib, 23, was handed a 13-year sentence for his plans to fight in Syria.
Speakers hailed the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris, while others collected money for legal fees of Omar Bakri Muhammad.
Anjem Choudary also spoke at one of the meetings and sent a text message to an associate who spoke there that read: ‘I can’t help being the most hated man in England.’ Other speakers included terrorist Omar Brooks.
Yesterday Mohammed Choudry was convicted of encouraging support for IS alongside Zaiur Rahman, 39, who helped to organise the meetings in July 2015.
Judge Michael Topolski QC told the pair: ‘You have been convicted unanimously by this jury of arranging meetings and speaking at a meeting in support of a vicious terrorist organisation, whose members and supporters, just like you two, have hijacked and corrupted the principles and practices of an ancient and revered religion for its own purposes.’
At an earlier Old Bailey trial, three other members of the group, Mohammed Istiak Alamgir, 37, Yousaf Bashir, 36 and Rajib Khan, 37, all from Luton, were convicted of encouraging support for a proscribed organisation. Leader Anjem Choudary was jailed for five-and-a-half years for encouraging support for IS.
Met Police Commander Dean Haydon said: ‘These speeches and material were being used to radicalise others. What these individuals were doing was infecting young minds of children.’ All five men will be sentenced together at a later date.
‘Infecting young minds of children’