Anjem Choudary, 49, faces jail after being convicted at the Old Bailey of drumming up support for ISIS
Choudary has spent nearly two decades praising violent jihadism and continued to express extreme views during his Old Bailey trial
HATE preacher Anjem Choudary, who has spent the past 20 years spreading extremist views in Britain, is FINALLY facing jail.
The 49-year-old Muslim drummed up support for ISIS in a series of videos posted on YouTube, the Old Bailey heard.
Despite being a leading figure in the banned extremist group al-Muhajiroun (ALM), and a series of former supporters going on to be convicted of terrorism, Choudary somehow managed to stay on the right side of the law for two decades before investigators were at long last able to pin him down.
In one speech in March 2013, Choudary set out his ambitions for the Muslim faith to "dominate the whole world".
He said: "Next time when your child is at school and the teacher says 'What do you want when you grow up? What is your ambition?', they should say 'To dominate the whole world by Islam, including Britain - that is my ambition'."
Supporters included Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, the murderers of soldier Lee Rigby, and suspected IS executioner Siddhartha Dhar.
In a long awaited victory for British justice he now faces a maximum possible sentence of 10 years in prison.
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Choudary and co-defendant Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, 33, were found guilty of inviting support for ISIS between June 29 2014 and March 6 2015. The verdicts were delivered on July 28, but for legal reasons can only be reported for the first time today.
As the pair were convicted, Mr Justice Holroyde warned them that they face prison, and criticised them for showing only "a grudging compliance" to the court.
He added: "You have made your disregard for the court abundantly plain.";
Police pounced after Choudary, along with three other influential radicals, lent their names to an oath of allegiance to ISIS which was posted on the internet.
The trial heard that the preacher, viewed by officers as a key force in radicalising young Muslims, had been the "mouthpiece" of Omar Bakri Mohammed - the founder of the banned extremist group ALM.
He courted publicity by voicing controversial views on Sharia law, while building up a following of thousands through social media, demonstrations and lectures around the world.
He cruelly ridiculed non-Muslims who held down 9-to-5 jobs all their lives and said sponging off them made plotting holy war easier.
In recordings made over three meetings Choudary also said David Cameron and Barack Obama should be KILLED, grinned as he branded the Queen “ugly” and predicted a “tsunami” of Islamic immigrants would sweep Europe.
He laughed as he told supporters: “You find people are busy working the whole of their life. They wake up at 7 o’clock. They go to work at 9 o’clock. They work for eight, nine hours a
day. They come home at 7 o’clock, watch EastEnders, sleep, and they do that for 40 years of their life. That is called slavery.
“And at the end of their life they realise their pension isn’t going to pay out anything, the mortgage isn’t going to pay out anything.
“Basically they are going to lose everything, commit suicide. What kind of a life is that, honestly. That is the life of kuffar (non-believer).”
He went on: “People will say, ‘Ah, but you are not working’.
“But the normal situation is for you to take money from the kuffar.
“So we take Jihad Seeker’s Allowance. You need to get support.”
Figures obtained by The Sun in 2010 showed the extremist cleric received £15,600 a year in housing benefit to keep him in a £320,000 house in
Leytonstone, East London.
He also got £1,820 council tax allowance, £5,200 income support and £3,120 child benefits — equivalent to a taxed salary of £32,500.
In another bile-filled rant, the scrounger said Mr Cameron, Mr Obama and the leaders of Pakistan and Egypt were the shaitan (devil).
He added: “What ultimately do we want to happen to them? Maybe I’m the only one who wants the shaitan to be killed. The shaitan should be finished.
There should be no shaitan.
“All should be obedience to Allah, or you have no right to call yourself Muslim.”
At a three-hour meeting in a community centre in Bethnal Green, East London, he insisted it was wrong to deny any aspect of Islam — including jihad or ultra-strict sharia law.
He gloated that the 9/11 terror attacks “shook the enemy” and claimed white supremacists wished they had the “fortitude” to fly planes into buildings.
He went on to proclaim: “You must hate in your heart — Cameron, Obama, all that they worship.
“Democracy, freedom, secularism, the parliament, all the MPs and the Presidents, all the kuffar’s ideas, everything the people worship, we have to believe that they are bad and we have got to reject them.
“Reject them with our tongue. Reject them with our heart. In our heart have hatred towards them.”
Before accepting that the caliphate was legitimate, Choudary consulted his "spiritual guide" Omar Bakri Mohammed, currently in jail in Lebanon, and Mohammed Fachry, the head of ALM in Indonesia.
On July 7 2014, the trio's names appeared alongside Rahman's on the oath, which stated the Muhajiroun had "affirmed" the legitimacy of the "proclaimed Islamic Caliphate State".
The defendants followed up by posting on YouTube a series of lectures on the caliphate, which Choudary promoted to more than 32,000 Twitter followers.
The father-of-five denied encouraging his followers to back the terror group and insisted the oath had been made without his knowledge. He said of the pledge: "It is completely unnecessary. For the rest of the Muslims it is obedience from the heart."
Despite protesting his innocence, he continued to express extreme views during his Old Bailey trial, refusing to denounce the execution of journalist James Foley by so-called Jihadi John, aka Mohammed Emwazi, in Syria in 2014.
He told the jury: "If you took an objective view there are circumstances where someone could be punished."
Choudary, of Hampton Road, Ilford, and Rahman, of Sidney Street in Whitechapel, east London, will be sentenced on September 6.
The medical student who went on to inspire Lee Rigby killers
Anjem Choudary, 49, was born in north London and after leaving school began studying medicine at St Barts medical school.
He changed courses after his first year, enrolling at the Guildford College of Law (now the University of Law).
After taking his articles and clerkship, Choudary opened his own solicitors' practice in his late 20s where his roles included 'assistant for racial equality'.
Giving evidence in court he said his developing religious beliefs did not sit easily with certain aspects of the law.
"I found it very difficult to give advice to people which was contrary to the divine text,' he told jurors.
"There was a period in time where I reviewed my life and decided there was a better path for me.
"I believe ultimately we will all face our creator and our relationship with him should be a good one.
"The real court and the real judgement is on the day of judgement.' In 1996, aged 29, he married Rubana Akhtar and went on to have five children, supporting his family on state benefits.
Choudary began studying under Syrian-born Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, a Salafi Islamist militant leader, who he compared to a famous Rabbi or Priest.
Bakri set up the extremist group Al-Muhajiroun, now outlawed in the UK as a terror organisation.
Choudary used to assist Bakri as an assistant judge in the Sharia court before starting to deal with cases himself in the late Nineties and travelled with Bakri to Libya in 2005.
But he returned to the UK to run Al-Muhajiroun after being thrown out of the country where Bakri is now in jail.
Choudary remained a key figure within the group as it changed names and operated under numerous aliases after 2004, including Islam4UK.
He was the group's media spokesman during the time the group put out 'incendiary statements' calling for Buckingham Palace to be turned into a Mosque and Nelson's Column to be destroyed.
Under Choudary's influence, similar groups sprang up all over the world, including France and Belgium, where Choudary is still wanted for over a public order offence.
Choudary amassed 32,000 Twitter followers and was an avid user of social media and YouTube.
He took to the stand on the anniversary of the 7/7 London bombings wearing a white traditional Islamic robe and glasses.
Choudary swore an oath to Allah before giving evidence but refused to lay his hand on the Qu'ran.
The charismatic figure told how he would 'bait' the media with controversial statements to spread his message and made dozens of appearances on all of the major news channels.
Choudary had hundreds of international media contacts he would message before a demonstration, including 31 from the BBC.
He boasted of sharing a platform with the former head of the head of the Bar - Lord Philip - in Red Lion Sqaure and of an invitation to debate at the Oxford Union.
'The bigger the audience, the more beneficial,' he said.
'Prophets of old used to stand and preach on the mountains. The equivalent is Sky News, CNN nowadays.' In 2003, he appeared on Irish TV's Late Late Show with Pat Kelly in which he talked about how Osama bin Laden was a hero to many Muslims in Indonesia and Pakistan.
Choudary said it was typical of his media appearances and continued 'I was recently asked about Brexit'.
He told how the Leave campaign jumped on his comments in the days before the referendum.
Choudary and the groups associated with him had called for Sharia law across the UK and the establishment of a Caliphate.
He had been opensly sympathetic to ISIS until the organisation was proscribed on 20 June 2014.
Days after ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the Caliphate on 29 June 2014, Choudary met with his inner circle and agreed the state was legitimate before adding his name to an oath of alliegance that appeared online.
He was arrested on 25 September 2014, re-bailed on 27 January last year, then charged with terror offences on 5 August 2015.