Students sentenced in terror case

A schoolboy and four students who wanted to fight British soldiers and die as terrorist martyrs were jailed today after a judge said they had become "intoxicated" by extremist propaganda.

The Bradford University students were arrested after London Muslim schoolboy Mohammed Irfan Raja ran away from home in February last year.

He left a note for his parents saying he was going to fight abroad and they would meet again in heaven, the Old Bailey heard.

Raja had been recruited by the students on the internet and exchanged terrorist propaganda with them before going to stay with them.

But he returned home three days later after a tearful telephone call in which his parents begged him to come back.

The prosecution said they were all planning to go to Pakistan for training before going to fight jihad.

Raja, 19, of Ilford, east London, and students Awaab Iqbal, 20, of Grove Terrace, Bradford; Aitzaz Zafar, 20, of Bishop Street, Rochdale, Lancashire; Usman Ahmed Malik, 21, of Laisteridge Lane, Bradford, West Yorkshire; Akbar Butt, 20, of Southall, west London; and Awaab Iqbal, 20, of Grove Terrace, Bradford, faced charges for having extreme material on their computers.

Raja was given two years youth detention, Zafar and Iqbal were given three years detention, Malik was sent to prison for three years and Butt was given 27 months detention.

Recorder of London Judge Peter Beaumont said they were preparing to train in Pakistan and then fight in Afghanistan against its allies, which included British soldiers.

He said the defendants were born in Britain and enjoyed freedom of speech and worship.

The judge added: "You were intoxicated by the extremist nature of the material each one of you collected - the songs, images and the language of violent jihad.

"And so carried away by that material were you that each of you crossed the line.

"That is exactly what the people that peddle this material want to achieve and exactly what you did."

He said the sentences had to be a deterrent. "To stop them and you and to protect this country and its citizens abroad, a message has to be sent."

The judge told Raja: "The letter made it clear what you intended to do."

He said Iqbal, Zafar and Malik had been at the heart of a radical Islamic group at Bradford University.

The court was told police found material downloaded from various internet sites and chatroom conversations said to be intended to encourage terrorism or martyrdom.

Raja's parents searched his computer when he failed to return home from school in February last year. They found a martyrdom song.

Police later found a note which said: "We will meet in the garden of paradise."

It continued: "Please do not blame each other about why you could not stop me."

It added a PS saying he was going abroad and ended: "Now smile."

Andrew Edis QC, prosecuting, said the propaganda on the internet had led Raja to try to get to a terrorist training camp in Pakistan.

But Mr Edis said: "Irfan Raja was not as firm in his purpose as he hoped he would be, and as the people in Bradford hoped he would be.

"When he wrote the letter and went to Bradford, he was radicalised in his mind and intent on his course.

"When Mr Raja went to join the jihad, he chose Bradford and the co-defendants as the best way to start.

"He had hidden his purpose from his family who were beside themselves when they found out what he had done. They were absolutely beside themselves with worry and fear.

"They are orthodox Muslims and do not subscribe to this extremist or radical strain of thought."

Raja told police that the letter he left "was just him fantasising about jihad" and he "wanted them to worry because he was unhappy at home".

But he added that "in a year's time he would go abroad to another country to fight", the court heard.

Mr Edis said he had been introduced to the group over the internet by a 17-year-old student called Ali, from New Jersey, and the plan was for Ali to come over and join them.

While Raja was a schoolboy, the other defendants were all first-term students at Bradford University and watched jihadi videos together.

They were "a group of people radicalising each other and becoming more and more interested in that material", Mr Edis said.

The propaganda was a veneration of "suicide as a weapon of war and of terrorism".

He said the views were the same as those put forward by Osama bin Laden and al Qaida and were a "call to arms" to young men to give their lives to rid Muslim lands of unbelievers.