British Islamist Anjem Choudary charged with terrorism offences
Anjem Choudary, one of Britain’s leading Islamists, has been charged with three terrorism offences.
The news comes after he was arrested last week.
He has been charged with directing a terrorist organisation, being a member of a proscribed organisation, and addressing meetings to encourage support for a proscribed organisation.
Anjem Choudary, born in the UK and of Pakistani descent, failed his first-year medical exams at the University of Southampton due to his party lifestyle, but eventually graduated in law, later becoming Chairman of the Society of Muslim Lawyers. He became radicalised in the 1990s, launching al-Muhajiroun in the UK – later banned under terror laws – in 1996 with Syrian-born Islamist, Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed.
The Jihadist group became linked to international terrorism, antisemitism and homophobia as it sought a world subject to Sharia law, and praised the 9/11 highjackers. The group disbanded in 2004 following its proscription but is believed to have continued to operate under different aliases. According to The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Choudary was involved in recruiting Muslims to undergo weapons training in the UK in order to fight for Osama Bin Laden’s International Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, and in 2010 he was linked to those involved in an al Qaeda plot to bomb the London Stock Exchange.
Mr Choudary praised the murderers of Drummer Lee Rigby in 2013, in response to which comments then-Prime Minister David Cameron said: “Let’s be clear about Anjem Choudary: he does have absolutely despicable and appalling views, an absolutely classic case of that poisonous narrative of extremism and violence that we need to confront and defeat.”
In 2016, Mr Choudary was convicted of supporting the Islamic State in connection with speeches posted on YouTube. He was jailed for five years and six months. At the time he was jailed, he had reportedly been linked to fifteen terror plots dating back approximately twenty years, and had connections to hundreds of British jihadists who had travelled to Syria to fight.
He was released from Belmarsh prison after serving half of his sentence, although he remained subject to some 25 licence conditions.
In 2021, he was reported to have suggested that the MP Sir David Amess may have been murdered because of his “rumoured pro-Israel views”.
Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Antisemitism Barometer 2021 showed that almost eight in ten British Jews consider the threat from Islamists to be very serious.
