Engineer jailed for extremism

SYRIAN MAN SHARED ISIS PROPAGANDA

AN engineer who posted links to extremist propaganda videos which were designed to “support, justify and glorify the actions of Islamic State” has been jailed for seven years.

Abdulrahman Alcharbati “intended to encourage acts of terrorism” when he shared the links on his openly accessible social media page in February last year, a judge ruled.

In shocking footage played to Newcastle Crown Court during his trial, Syrian soldiers were violently beaten to death and dragged away tied to motorbikes as a man whipped a crowd of onlookers into a “frenzy.”

Another of the videos depicted young children at an orphanage being given Islamic State “indoctrination” and being taught how to be a “thorn in the side of enemies of religion”.

Alcharbati, 32, who was born in Syria, also uploaded a link to a film showing a suicide bombing, which is greeted with “jubilation” from those commentating on it.

Another video was a 30-second clip, containing footage from a rap verse which glorified ISIS suicide missions.

The jury heard another video, which lasted over 30 minutes and was in Russian with Arabic subtitles, encouraged violence, including the words: “Whack them with a rock, cut his throat with a knife, crush him with a car, push him from high, suffocate him, poison him”.

The court heard the videos were mostly in Arabic and often featured an ISIS flag.

Facebook had suspended Alcharbati’s page on eight occasions between December 2016 and March 2017 but he managed to get it reinstated on each occasion by claiming he was merely “exposing what was happening” and he needed to use the site for work.

Alcharbati, who claimed during his trial he was Jesus Christ, was convicted by a jury of six counts of disseminating terrorist material, relating to the postings he made in February 2017, and was also found guilty of possessing a “bomb-making” manual.

Jurors were told how the manual, which was discovered on his phone following his arrest on May 3 2017, provided viable guidance on how to make suicide vests.

Copies were made of his Facebook profile and 400 posts were recovered between January 24 and February 26.

Of those, 70 were found to refer to ISIS directly and 40 made reference to martyrdom.

As he was given the seven-year sentence Alcharbati, who has been on hunger strike since Tuesday, covered his face with his hands and appeared upset.

Judge Paul Sloan QC told him: “These were links to extremist Islamic videos, Isis inspired videos which glorified terrorism and were intended to encourage acts of terrorism.

“In my view, your repeated claims your intention was simply to share and shed light on what was happening is not credible.

“Your offending is aggravated by the fact you failed to heed what were, in effect, repeated warnings from Facebook.”

The judge added Alcharbati, of Westholme Gardens, Newcastle, was someone who “clearly had terrorist motivations”, saying his other Facebook posts were characterised by an antipathy towards the Syrian Government - made worse by the death of his brother in Syria in 2015.

The court heard how Alcharbati, who has been diagnosed as bipolar, claimed that he suffered from a “manic episode” when he made the posts.

Bunty Batra, defending, said the married father-of-four has been on “hunger strike” since Tuesday as “he believes he should be in a hospital rather than a prison”.

These were links to extremist Islamic videos, Isis inspired videos which glorified terrorism