British-Pakistani cleric Anjum Chaudhry released from prison after terrifying Europe
: Cleric Anjum Chaudhry, long a thorn in the side of British
authorities, was released from prison last Friday having served half his
sentence for encouraging support for the militant Islamic State group, British
media reported.
The 51-year-old was jailed for five-and-a-half years in 2016
and will serve the rest of his sentence under strict supervision orders having
been released from Belmarsh prison, near London. He is expected to return to
his home in Ilford, east of London, although will not be able to use any
internet-enabled devices without permission, the BBC reported.
Other restrictions are reported to include bans on leaving
Britain without permission and on attending certain mosques and he will only be
allowed to meet with people approved by the police.
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Chaudhry is the former head in Britain of Islam4UK or
al-Muhajiroun, a now-banned group co-founded by Omar Bakri Muhammad that called
for Islamic law in the United Kingdom.
For two decades, the former lawyer of Pakistani descent
stayed on the right side of the law, becoming Britain’s most prominent radical
preacher. Among those trained by Muhajiroun were the suicide bombers who killed
52 people on London’s public transport system in July 2005, and the men who
murdered soldier Lee Rigby in the capital in 2013, police say.
The court heard that Chaudary had broadcast speeches recognising
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as the leader of the ‘Islamic State’. Chaudhry and his
co-defendant Mohammed Rahman were arrested by officers from the Metropolitan
Police’s Counter Terrorism Command on September 25, 2014.
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at UK parliament
The father-of-five previously hit the headlines for
organising a pro-Osama bin Laden event in London in 2011. He also belonged to a
group that burned poppies, the symbol of remembrance for deaths in war, during
an Armistice Day protest in the British capital in 2010.
In a 2014 interview with AFP, Chaudary called on western
journalists, civilians and troops in “Muslim countries” to “completely withdraw
and allow us to implement the Shariah”.
Former police terror chief Richard Walton called him a
“hardened dangerous terrorist” who had had a “huge influence on extremism in
this country”.
