Teenage cyber terrorist sent to jail
Saturday September 20 2008
BRITAIN'S youngest convicted terrorist was sentenced to two years in a young offender institution yesterday.
Hammaad Munshi, from Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, England, was 15 when he was recruited into a worldwide plot to wipe out non-Muslims.
He was arrested in 2006 after police found material promoting "murder and destruction", including a guide to making napalm, on his computer and under his bed. Now 18, he has been convicted of making a record of information likely to be used for terrorist purposes.
Munshi, a GCSE student, led a double life, attending lessons by day and surfing jihadist websites at night. He was part of a cell of cyber groomers devoted to brainwashing the vulnerable into killing "kuffar", or non-believers.
During his trial, Blackfriars Crown Court heard that Munshi, who wanted to be a martyr, downloaded files about making napalm, detonators and grenades for himself, and his co-defendants Aabid Khan and Sultan Muhammad. He also ran a website selling hunting knives and Islamic flags and had the online profile "fidadee", meaning a "person ready to sacrifice himself". Sentencing the teenager at the Old Bailey yesterday, Judge Timothy Pontius said he had given Munshi a lighter sentence because of his age and because he had fallen "under the spell of fanatical extremists" such as Khan.
Harendra de Silva, QC, for Munshi, said the student had been subjected to "grooming and manipulation" by others.
Khan, 23, of Bradford, England, was jailed for 12 years on three counts of possessing articles for terrorism. Muhammad, 23, also of Bradford, was given 10 years for three similar charges and one of compiling information for terror. (© The Times, London)
- Lucy Bannerman in London
