Radical UK preacher jailed for encouraging support for Daesh

Anjem Choudary only gets 5 1/2 years versus the 10 max

… from Press TV, Tehran

[ Editor’s Note: It took a long time to nail Anjem Choudary. After all, he was a British-trained lawyer and knew where the red lines were. That was one of the reasons we would see a smirk on his face so much. He was enjoying using Western freedoms to aid and abet the terrorist jihadis.

But the flip side of that is why we don’t see law enforcement concerned about people in Western governments, military and their security services also getting nailed for doing the same thing, and even on a larger scale. We have seen more than a few smirks among them also, hiding behind their government secrecy and immunity.

Choudary was the first and only time I’ve had the opportunity to go head-to-head on a Debate Show on Press TV a few years ago. It was great fun. He had no idea who I was, and would not have cared anyway. But I knew who he was.

Many were suspicious that British authorities were using him as a honey trap to sift out who the terrorists were in Britain and get them out to the front lines where they might be killed fighting Assad… a “two fer”. That seemed a very risky business, as it created a stream of well-trained hard core jihadis coming back home.

I looked up the old Debate show interview (07-23-13) on VT, but the Press TV link was broken; but I do have the transcript of my comments during the show, and have added them to the end of today’s article… Jim W. Dean ]

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– First published  …  September 06,  2016 –

Radical British preacher Anjem Choudary has been jailed for five and a half years for encouraging support for the Daesh (ISIL) terrorist group.

Choudary, 49, was sentenced on Tuesday at London’s Old Bailey court, following a conviction in July for using online lectures and messages to encourage support for Daesh.

Choudary, who was born in London to Pakistani parents, was convicted along with his associate Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, 33.  He told his followers to support Daesh in a series of videos on YouTube. Police say his followers carried out attacks in Britain and overseas.

The court heard that Choudary and Rahman pledged allegiance to Daesh and used a convicted terrorist to publish their oath on an Indonesian website in 2014, Scotland Yard said.

“We have watched Choudary developing a media career as spokesman for the extremists, saying the most distasteful of comments, but without crossing the criminal threshold,” said Commander Dean Haydon, the head of Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorism Command.

“Their recent speeches and the oath of allegiance were a turning point for the police — at last we had the evidence that they had stepped over the line and we could prove they were actively encouraging support of ISIL.”

Judge Timothy Holroyde said Choudary and Rahman were “calculating and dangerous” and had shown no remorse.

“Throughout all of your speeches and broadcasts you expressed your contempt for the values of the democracy in which we live,” Judge Holroyde said. “You show no remorse at all for anything you have said or done, and I have no doubt you will continue to communicate your message whenever you can.”

Terrorism experts say Choudary’s influence extended to other parts of Europe, particularly France and Belgium.

“Historically, many terrorist plots in the UK could be linked back to networks he was involved in, and more recently, groups across Europe that he helped establish were at the core of networks sending westerners to Syria and Iraq,” said Raffaello Pantucci, director of International Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute.

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Transcript of July 23rd, 2013 Debate show

… by Jim W. Dean, VT Editor      … with Press TV

I got a call Sunday morning about doing this Press TV show, debating Choudary on Syria. So it was a Christmas in July for me with Santa coming early. The transcript below is just my part. PTV does like to do full show transcripts as that is too long a format for their news section.

You can watch the 23 minute engagement here.

( Sorry the link is dead. Press TV seems to a time limit on keeping them active..JD )

Choudary is an old street fighter but he made his first goof early in the show when he put the entire 100,000 dead from the Syrian war all at Assad’s doorstep, like we all live on another planet and are not aware of what his Salafist buddies have been doing there.

I could not hijack the show from the host and turn in into a mugging of Choudary as the topic was the Kurds and al-Nusra fighting in northern Syria.

But I went ahead and submitted an article to Press TV’s Viewpoints   Sunday night where I used the interesting material I had found on the man behind the Foster Grants with the twinkle in is eye, like he is enjoying the role he is playing immensely.

The longer commentary format gave me room to get some needed licks on the Salafist Jihadi crazies and their international supporters, which incredibly include us as our Gulf proxies are funding and arming these religious thugs. Enjoy the show. I surely did.

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West, Israelis exploiting divisions in Syria case: Dean

Following is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Mr. Dean why do you think that we are starting to see a growing role in the Syrian conflict by the Kurds at this time?

Dean: Well, I am not surprised because you have had a lot of major developments with some of these ongoing battles with the Kurds, particularly with Iraq basically coming to an arrangement with them to try to end the longstanding, never-ending fights going on there.

And then of course with al-Nusrah, basically, trying to carve off a northern part of Syria, so they can establish a quasi-Islamic state there, that is going to run head-to-head against the Kurds because these Islamist, radical crazies, they do not respect or honor anybody’s rights, interests or whatever.

Once they get control, it is going to rule via the knife and getting your head chopped off if they have any problems with you.

Press TV: Mr. Dean do you believe that the Kurdish group is, actually, being encouraged from the outside to do what they are doing?

Dean: I would not say so, because they have not really been encouraged by anybody for a long time. They are a very nationalistic people, one of the last, really longstanding, victims of the British empire. When they set up these states, they made sure that different ethnic groups were thrown in together, so there would always be tensions there because they tend to rule their colonies, even after they pulled out by the divide and conquer method.

So, they could always pit groups against each other and it would be easier to manipulate them and the West is still trying to do that now and we are very concerned and we think a lot of it is being manipulated for benefits of the West, so they can justify military presence and consider threats that they are actually manipulating and creating themselves.

Press TV: Mr. Dean, as far as what our guest in London is saying and the crimes that we have seen, he said obviously groups do not come from the other side of the world to go and commit crimes, but how do you see that especially if they are getting paid?

Dean: Well, of course they do. I mean it is a ridiculous statement. The complete reversal Assad has had with support inside Syria is that all these outside groups have recorded thieves and murderers and drug smugglers from all over the planet, including your typical young teenagers looking for something to do and the brutality of these Muslim terrorists who were…,

There is nobody that can hold a candle to them in terms of cruelty because there is nothing more cruel than a religious terrorist who feels he is doing God’s will and what has happened now is the al-Nusrah people have everybody in Syria so scared about what is going to happen to them if they win.

Even opponents of Assad are backing him now because the big enemy is the Sharia crazies and Assad will win in 2014 when we have another election, he is going to win by a landslide.

So, really, what we are seeing is that Islam has been carjacked by the radicals and they have a lot of operatives in the media, even some of the Western intelligence agencies who were trying to stir things up or seeing to it that a lot of them get a lot of media publicity which we are very suspicious about.

Press TV: Mr. Dean in general when we are looking at this situation, who actually, benefits from this type of division?

Would it not be, for example like the Israelis if the Kurds really were able to, actually, get that separate region, trying to, basically, separate Syria? Who benefits from this?

Dean: Well, the Israelis have been a player in this. They were planning to use Kurdish airbases for their attack on Iran. Israeli commandos had been training some of the Kurdish paramilitary people; they have been training them in security. So Israel definitely has had a very big footprint there because Israelis are very, very good at exploiting divisions amongst people.

So that is a concern, but I think that the first thing we have to try to get by on this thing is, whether the Kurds are going to have what is called an autonomous region, which would, kind of be like a state within a country where they have like a state government and they have control over their local affairs like in a way states do in the US. But I do not think that they are going to get a situation where there…

Press TV: Like Iraq right now?

Dean: Yes, correct. But I am not really seeing a situation where they are going to get an independent country.

I think that Kurds would be very, very happy to manage all their local affairs and get Syrian troops or Turkish troops…, they do not have Turkish policemen and Turkish crooked judges to have to deal with in dealing with their local affairs. This is what all local people want.

They want to get the federal people and particularly the crooks and their corruption out of their country, out of their region.

Press TV: Do you consider the growing activity in the situation in Syria by the Kurds, is it dangerous? Do you see it as being a dangerous movement that is taking place or not?

Dean: I do not really think that it is. I think that the Kurds are obviously…, some resolution is going to have to be made. I think they deserve, like any people, to have autonomous control over what they are doing, but just taking a look at the Jihadi, the al-Qaeda, al-Nusrah people that is supposed to bring this Nirvana of Sharia law, they are completely exposed now as having carjacked Islam.

These are nothing but cruel, vicious people who are using religion, like it has always been, whether it is crusaders or Islamists, basically, to control and have a vicious regime and the Kurds know this now.

And the Kurds are going to fight. They are not going to put up with that. If they have been fighting the Turks and the Syrians and the Iraqis for decades and decades and decades, they are sure going to fight a bunch of religious Islamic extremists.

Press TV: Well, Mr. Dean how do you see the situation playing out right now? With the situation happening right now with the Kurds we have seen, basically it seems playing both sides of the spectrum.

We earlier saw the Kurds, actually, fighting the Syrian government forces, now we have seen them fighting al-Nusrah forces and now there seems to be a ceasefire between al-Nusrah and the Kurds.

What do you think the bottom-line is? Basically, are they supporting or are they opposed to either side or basically is it just a separate agenda?

Dean: I think that it is a separate agenda and I think one of the most fruitless questions to ask today for really anybody is how do you think this going to play out because I do not think anybody knows.

It is absolutely utter, total chaos, you have all the old animosities now superimposed by a whole bunch of new ones that are being created, including those that said they were carrying the banner for pure Islam. They basically have shown their true hand in Syria that on their best day they are as bad as anything that the Western imperialists have ever done.

So it is just a tremendous, horrible situation that nice regular, moderate people over there, that just want to live their lives and raise their families are being cruelly victimized including those…, Mr. Choudary seems to leave that out.

He gives a freehand to all the radicals and Taliban. They have been blowing up and slaughtering innocent civilians without any bad publicity by people like Mr. Choudary….

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Jim W. Dean

Jim W. Dean is VT Editor Emeritus.  He was an active editor on VT from 2010-2022.  He was involved in operations, development, and writing, plus an active schedule of TV and radio interviews.  He now writes and posts periodically for VT.

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