British teen sentenced for plans to join ISIL

A British teenager has been jailed after planning to travel to ISIL-controlled parts of Syria.

Syed Choudhury, 19, who was studying and working in Cardiff, was reportedly radicalized by elder members of the Welsh community.

However, the judge, Peter Rook QC took on the tender age of Choudhury and described him as “impressionable to indoctrination” despite jailing him for three years and four months for preparing acts of terrorism.

Addressing Choudhury, he said: “You have shown some awareness of how misguided your earlier extremist position was. You now say: ‘I’m lucky I got stopped.’”

But Rook was careful not to overlook the threat Choudhury posed to the public. “I cannot disregard what you said earlier and how you are an impressionable, immature person susceptible to radicalisation,” he said.

Choudhury is not the only one to plot to travel to Syria to join ISIL terrorist group. In recent months, two young men of similar age who appeared on an ISIL propaganda and recruitment video, were identified as British citizens of Cardiff.

Nasser Muthana and Reyaad Khan made international headlines when they were seen to call upon Britons to follow in their footsteps to fight with ISIL.

Muthana’s 17 year old brother also reportedly left the Welsh capital to travel to Syria after telling his parents he was going to a friend’s house to study for an upcoming exam.

Speaking on the results, Asst Ch Con Nikki Holland from the South Wales police, said: “We welcome today’s sentence, which sends a clear message that those who show support for a terrorist organisation, and plan to further this through becoming involved in terrorist acts, will be brought to justice...Choudhury throughout interview openly expressed his support for the Islamic State and even went as far that he would travel to Syria to fight for the cause and agreed with martyrdom.”

Meanwhile, a London-based rights campaigner told Press TV that one of the reasons why so many British youths decide to join ISIL terrorists in Syria is the “prioritization of Syria by the Western politicians.”

“Why in particular people are going to Syria and join this group… Why is it that they don’t go to Kashmir, Palestine, Myanmar or anywhere else to stand up against injustice? When we look at this we realize that this prioritization of Syria is something that has been done by the Western politicians and indeed the Western media. Day in, day out, we are being told that the priority is to remove Bashar al-Assad,…” Masoud Shajareh said on Wednesday.

He also slammed the British government’s policies as the main cause of the problem.

“We really need to stop this process that the government is trying to blame this whole thing on the Muslim community and indeed on Islam. They need to look at themselves and their own actions,” head of the Islamic Human Rights Commission added.

Some 700 Britons have already travelled to Syria to join ISIL. It is estimated that nearly half of them have returned to the UK.

SU/HA