`Thoroughly radicalized' student sentenced to five years

LONDON (RNS) A Muslim student described by a judge as "thoroughly
radicalized" has been sentenced to five years in prison in Britain for
creating terrorist movies and "inflammatory" videos he fed to the
Internet.


A jury in London's Old Bailey criminal court convicted Mohammed Gul
of five terrorist offenses with publications that police said "could
have encouraged the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of
terrorism."


In passing sentence on the 23-year-old student on Friday (Feb. 25),
Judge David Paget said Gul's actions amounted to "pouring petrol on the
fire."


He told the defendant, "I am in no doubt that you have been
thoroughly radicalized" in extremist Islamism.


When he was arrested two years ago, prosecutors said, police also
seized two computers and other storage devices, on which they found so
much incriminating evidence that the judge said left them with a
"Herculean task" of sifting through it all.


Police described their investigation as the largest review of such
data ever undertaken by Scotland Yard's anti-terrorism officers.


The seized material included video footage of terrorist destruction
of cars and tanks in the Middle East, and graphic footage of executions
and "martyrdom" videos of suicide bombers.