Man linked to terrorist jailed over jihadi video

AN ASSOCIATE of London Bridge attacker Khuram Butt has been jailed after sharing a video glorifying terrorism on the 18th anniversary of the September 11 atrocities.

Shakil Chapra, 43, who is also known as Abu Haleema, joined the banned al-Muhajiroun (ALM) group, led by notorious extremist Anjem Choudary, 54, in 2013, Kingston Crown Court heard.

Chapra appeared alongside Butt, 27, in Channel 4 documentary The Jihadis Next Door in 2016, praying in front of the black flag associated with Isis in London’s Regent’s Park.

Butt, Rachid Redouane, 30, and Youssef Zaghba, 22, killed eight people and injured dozens more when they ploughed a van into pedestrians on London Bridge and then began stabbing people around Borough Market on June 3 2017.

Chapra, from Slough, pleaded guilty to disseminating a terrorist publication in March and was jailed for two-and-half years, with an extra 12 months on extended licence, by Judge Peter Lodder QC.

“You are to be sentenced for a single count of distributing a terrorist publication – posting a video agreed to give indirect glorification to and thus encouragement of terrorism,” the judged told him.

“From at least 2013, when you joined ALM, you have held extreme Islamic views.”

Chapra was arrested in November last year after police found a chat thread on the phone of Shehroz Iqbal, 29, who was jailed for eight-and-a-half years at the Old Bailey last year, having been found guilty of encouraging terrorism.

The court heard Iqbal made a video inciting a terror attack on London’s Royal Festival Hall and posted it to an extremist WhatsApp group with the words: “Attack, attack.”