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Students jailed over Al Qaida propaganda

A British court yesterday jailed a group of British Muslim students who collected a library of Al Qaida propaganda and intended to travel to Afghanistan to fight coalition forces for a total of 13 years.

  • Reuters
  • Published: 22:52 July 26, 2007
  • Gulf News

London: A British court yesterday jailed a group of British Muslim students who collected a library of Al Qaida propaganda and intended to travel to Afghanistan to fight coalition forces for a total of 13 years.

The five Muslim men linked up with sympathisers in Pakistan and the United States and held video conferences over the internet to discuss violent jihad. They were caught after the parents of one of the students contacted police.

Schoolboy Irfan Raja had run away from home in February 2006 when he was just 17, leaving a suicide note.

"If not in this dunyad [world] we will meet in Jannat [paradise]," the note said.

When his parents looked on his computer they found speeches by Osama Bin Laden calling for revenge on the West for invading Islamic lands and other extremist speeches, the prosecution told a London court.

"Any disbeliever, Jews and Americans were the prime targets," said prosecutor Antony Edis.

Raja had gone to meet four students from Bradford University in the north of England whom he had befriended on the internet and who intended to go to training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

However the next day, he returned home after speaking to his parents by phone and was arrested.

"They [Raja's parents] are orthodox Muslims and do not subscribe to this extremist or radical strain of thought," Edis said.

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