Jihad fighter recruiters jailed after anti-terror trial

Munir Farooqi, Israr Malik and Matthew Newton exposed by undercover police infiltrating faith stalls in Manchester Three men who recruited vulnerable men to fight British soldiers in Afghanistan to fight a holy war have been jailed after they were convicted of offences following an anti-terror trial. Munir Farooqi, 54, Israr Malik, 23, and Matthew Newton, 29, were exposed after undercover police officers infiltrated faith stalls in Manchester and found they were trying to groom vulnerable men to travel to training camps and battlefields abroad, where they would “fight, kill and die” in a jihad against coalition forces. They were convicted following a trial at Manchester crown court. On Friday, Farooqi was given four life sentences and told he must serve a minimum of nine years before he can be considered for parole. He had been convicted of preparing for acts of terrorism, three counts of soliciting to murder and one count of dissemination of terrorist publications, following a four-month trial. Passing sentence, Mr Justice Richard Henriques said: “You are in my judgment a very dangerous man, an extremist, a fundamentalist with a determination to fight abroad.” Farooqi had used his experiences fighting with the Taliban as a “tool of recruitment” to run the “Manchester recruitment centre” from Islamic bookstalls in the city. His operation was “sophisticated, ruthless and well honed,” the judge said. “You found the images of coffins draped in American flags as a source of great amusement. As residents of this country you owe allegiance to the Crown, that appears to have escaped your attention.” The group used dawah stalls – in Longsight and Manchester city centre to target vulnerable men and after converting them to the faith, radicalised them using terrorist literature, CDs and DVDs. Two undercover officers spent more than a year infiltrating the group and gaining the trust of Farooqi, who had been previously jailed in Afghanistan after fighting alongside the Taliban in 2001. One of the detectives taped him boasting: “If we die, we win. You have Allah on your side, how can we lose? You know jihad is not about you giving your life away. If we’re going to go there you make sure you take at least 40 or 50 people with us so we’ve done something.” The undercover officer said Farooqi told him he had been jailed for fighting in Afghanistan and he had been trailed by MI5 after returning to Britain. Matthew Newton, a white convert who worked as an estate agent, was convicted of engaging in conduct in preparation for acts of terrorism and two counts of dissemination of terrorist publications and sentenced to six years. He told the court he had never heard Farooqi advocate violence. Malik, from Fallowfield, was convicted of engaging in conduct in preparation for acts of terrorism and two counts of soliciting to murder and received an indeterminate sentence. It will be five years before he is eligible for parole. Detective Chief Superintendent Tony Porter, head of the North-West counter terrorism unit, said: “This was an extremely challenging case, both to investigate and successfully prosecute at court, because we did not recover any blueprint, attack plan or endgame for these men. “However, what we were able to prove was their ideology. These men were involved in an organised attempt in Manchester to recruit men to fight, kill and die in either Afghanistan or Pakistan by persuading them it was their religious duty. “That is not an expression of religious freedom, but a concerted effort to prepare people to fight against our own forces abroad. In law, that is terrorism. “Munir Farooqi was the leader. He used his dawah stall to attract vulnerable people like Israr Malik, and then begun to radicalise them, encouraging them to perform violent jihad abroad. He even arranged for these publications to be brought into a prison. Having already fought in Afghanistan in 2001, his war stories were another powerful way of influencing vulnerable young men. For young men who feel angry at the world, these powerful messages can be very persuasive.” He added: “We have worked very closely with a number of mosques, local partners and community leaders to keep them informed since the arrests, as we know this case has provoked strong feelings. I would like to thank those people for their support and understanding throughout what has been a very challenging investigation.” Officers found three books and three DVDs that were considered terrorist publications at Farooqi’s home among more than 50,000 books and leaflets and more than 5,000 recordings. UK security and terrorism Global terrorism Taliban Manchester Afghanistan Helen Carter guardian.co.uk

Posted by on September 9, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.