Anjem Choudary, a British radical preacher whose followers have been linked to numerous global plots, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Tuesday for directing a terrorist organization. Choudary, 57, was convicted last week of leading Al-MuHajjiroun, a group banned as a terrorist organization over a decade ago, and for encouraging others to support the proscribed group.
“Organizations such as yours normalize violence in support of an ideological cause,” Judge Mark Wall remarked at London’s Woolwich Crown Court. “Their existence gives individuals the courage to commit acts which otherwise they might not do. They drive wedges between people who otherwise could and would live together in peaceful coexistence.”
Judge Wall handed Choudary a life sentence with a minimum term of 28 years before he is eligible for parole, minus just over a year spent in custody since his arrest.
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Choudary, once Britain’s most high-profile Islamist preacher, previously drew attention for praising the perpetrators of the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States and expressing a desire to convert Buckingham Palace into a mosque. He was imprisoned in 2016 for encouraging support for Islamic State and released in 2018 after serving half of his five-and-a-half-year sentence.
Prosecutor Tom Little stated on Tuesday that Choudary became “the caretaker emir” of Al-MuHajjiroun after fellow Islamist preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed was jailed in Lebanon in 2014.
Choudary’s lawyer, Paul Hynes, argued that Al-MuHajjiroun was “little more than a husk of an organization” and that most terrorist acts linked to the group had already occurred. However, Judge Wall asserted that Al-MuHajjiroun remained “a radical organization intent on spreading sharia law to as much of the world as possible, using violent means where necessary.”
Choudary was tried alongside Canadian citizen Khaled Hussein, 29, who was arrested on the same day as Choudary in 2023 upon his arrival at Heathrow Airport. Hussein was found guilty of membership in a proscribed organization and sentenced to five years in prison.
