(London) Radical preacher Anjem Choudary, an influential figure in the Islamist movement in the United Kingdom, was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison for leading a banned “terrorist organisation” linked to several deadly attacks in recent years.
After a first stint in prison in the mid-2010s for supporting the jihadist group Islamic State, this 58-year-old lawyer of Pakistani origin is at high risk of spending the rest of his life behind bars, following a joint investigation led by the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada.
He remained impassive as he was handed down the sentence, which carries a 28-year security period, at Woolwich Crown Court in London, which found him guilty last week of leading the Al-Mouhajiroun (ALM) organisation from 2014, which has been banned in the UK since 2010.
Founded in 1996, the group has been implicated in several attacks in London, such as the one that killed eight people on June 3, 2017, at London Bridge and the assassination of soldier Lee Rigby in 2013. The investigation established that Anjem Choudary had taken over the leadership of ALM in 2014, when its founder, Omar Bakri, another famous preacher, had been imprisoned in Lebanon.
Including time spent in pre-trial detention, Anjem Choudary will not be eligible for release until he is 85, Judge Mark Wall noted in passing sentence, stressing the “grave danger” posed by his activities and his role in radicalising “young men”.
He described him as “an intelligent man” and “a persuasive speaker”: “You have no doubt about the correctness of your opinions. Your opinions are well-established and detestable.”
Allegiance to ISIS
Anjem Choudary had established himself as one of the main representatives of “Londonistan”, the radical Islamist movement established in the British capital in the early 2000s.
The son of a stockbroker, he had become a familiar figure to the authorities and the media, staging numerous demonstrations outside mosques, embassies and police stations in the United Kingdom.
His ultimate goal, he said, was to fly the flag of Islam over 10 Downing Street, the prime minister’s residence. He was careful, however, with his knowledge of the law, not to cross the red line into illegality until the mid-2010s.
In 2016, he was sentenced to five and a half years in prison for calling for support for the Islamic State group in a series of videos posted on YouTube after pledging allegiance to its then leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
He was released in October 2018 after serving half of his sentence, with the remainder of his sentence being kept under surveillance. After those measures were lifted, he resumed his online proselytizing activities in a very active manner, according to security services.
In particular, he began speaking at online conferences of the Islamic Thinkers Society (ITS), a group based in New York but considered the American branch of ALM.
Undercover US agents attended some of these meetings, which led to the preacher’s arrest in the early hours of July 17, 2023 at his home in east London.
The same day, Canadian Khaleed Hussein, 29, was arrested on arrival at London Heathrow Airport. Presented as Anjem Choudary’s personal assistant, he was also sentenced on Tuesday to five years in prison for belonging to a banned organisation.
Anjem Choudary had assured during the trial that ITS “did not exist” and that ALM had been dismantled in 2004.
In a statement, London police counter-terrorism chief Dominic Murphy highlighted the “incredibly courageous work of the American and Canadian undercover officers”.
“Anjem Choudary spent decades radicalizing individuals around the world and was brought to justice through tireless collaboration across multiple agencies and countries,” said New York City Deputy Police Commissioner Rebecca Weiner.