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Jail term on terror charges

Hasan Suroor

LONDON: A teenager of Pakistani origin on Friday became the youngest Briton to be jailed on terror charges.

Hammaad Munshi (18) was sentenced to two years for downloading a “guide” to napalm making though his lawyer claimedhe had done it simply out of “curiosity” and had no intention of using it.

He will serve his sentence in a young offenders’ institution.

Munshi, who was only 16 when he was arrested in 2006, comes from the same town of Drewsbury in Yorkshire where the leader of the July 7, 2005 London bombings, Mohammed Siddique Khan, lived at the time he plotted the terror attacks on the London Underground that killed more than 50 people. He was accused of spending hours viewing jihadi websites and downloading material that could provide assistance to potential terrorists. This, the prosecution claimed, included the napalm manual.

Though Munshi was cleared of the charge of possessing terrorist material, the judge observed that the nature of the things he downloaded made it a “particularly serious offence”.

“You have brought very great shame upon yourself, your family and your religion,” Judge Timothy Pontius told him adding: “There is no doubt that you knew what you were doing”.

Two others — Aabid Khan and Sultan Mohammed — were sentenced to 12 and 10 years respectively on terror charges. Khan (23) from Bradford — another Yorkshire town with a large population of Pakistani immigrants — was accused by prosecutors of “inciting others to take part in [jihad] and arranging for himself and others to attend military training in Pakistan in preparation for going to fight and, inevitably, to kill”.

Described as a “key player” in running a jihadi campaign through the Internet, Khan was accused of recruiting Munshi when he was just 15.

The judge pointedly noted the “malign influence” of Khan and said: “Were it not for Aabid Khan’s malign influence, I doubt this offence would ever have been committed.”

Sentencing Munshi, he said Khan and Mohammed took advantage of his “immaturity and vulnerability”.

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