How Anjem Choudary spent 20 years inspiring home-grown terrorists including Lee Rigby killers before finally facing jail
The former law student helped launch a group linked to a series of terror attacks
HATE preacher Anjem Choudary spent 20 years inspiring home-grown terrorists including Lee Rigby's killer before finally facing justice.
The former law student, who faces 10 years behind bars for drumming up support for ISIS, helped launch a group linked to a series of terror attacks.
The 49-year-old was the voice of al-Muhajiroun group, which counted Michael Adebolajo among its followers before it was banned by the government.
Muslim convert Adebolajo, who along with Michael Adebowale hacked Lee Rigby to death with a meat cleaver in Woolwich in 2013, was pictured standing behind the radical cleric at a rally in 2007.
After the brutal murder, the Choudary said Adebolajo was a "practising Muslim and a family man" who he was "proud of".
However, he denied encouraging the attack, insisting he was "channelling the energy of the youth through demonstrations and processions".
The son of a Pakistani market trader from Welling, South East London, played cat and mouse for two decades before he was brought to justice.
Jurors at the Old Bailey were shown pictures of Choudary and his deputy Mizanur Rahman at a demo outside the Lebanese embassy in London in April 2014.
Some of the crowd held up placards which said: "Islamic State Is Solution".
Born in North London, Choudary studied at St Bartholomew's medical school for a year before he became "disenchanted" and switched to law.
related stories
His view of the medical profession was summed up in one of his speeches in which he relegated "dealing with diarrhoea as a doctor in a hospital" to a "pastime".
The married dad-of-five told jurors at his Old Bailey trial that he went to Guildford College of Law, qualified as a solicitor and opened his own practice as well as carrying out a role as an assistant lawyer at the Commission for Racial Equality.
As he became more religious, practising elements of law troubled him and he decided there was "a better path".
In the 1990s, Choudary became a student of the cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed, learning about Sharia Law and the "science of the Koran".
Over the next 10 years, they became close and he helped him as an "assistant judge of Sharia Law".
He once said: "Because Sheikh Omar was not great at English he would ask me to write marriage certificates. I used to assist him as assistant judge of Sharia Law. I used to officiate marriages and deal with reconciliation, divorce, inheritance matters."
After Al-Muhajiroun was disbanded in 2004, Syrian-born Sheikh Omar left the United Kingdom to visit his mother in Lebanon and was barred from returning as his immigration status was revoked.
Choudary went on to campaign for his "spiritual guide" after he was imprisoned in the country.
He gave numerous television and newspaper interviews up until his arrest in the autumn of 2014.
He also talked of sharing a platform with the former head of the bar, Lord Phillips.
Choudary was a prolific writer, although a book deal in 2006 was cancelled after the publisher got "cold feet" , he said.
He told the jurors at his trial that he joined Twitter two or three years ago and now has more than 32,000 followers, although he follows nobody.
His co-defendant Mohammed Mizanur Rahman had 28,000 followers.
Choudary's YouTube channel had 129 videos uploaded, many of them featuring the radical preacher's lectures and debates.
