Instagram Islamist jailed for 10 years for posting Isis propaganda

Saleem, from east London, posted Isis footage on his Instagram story, which showed various suicide bombings.

The footage was posted in July 2022, on the anniversary of the 2005 7/7 bombings in London, where four separate suicide bombers killed 52 people on three Tube trains and a bus.

In court today, Saleem was sentenced to nine years in prison, with one on license.

The judge also ruled that he must service two-thirds in prison.

Saleem is subject to a notification period for 30 years.

Sentencing Saleem, Her Honour Judge Angela Rafferty KC said: "You have an established pattern of offending in relation to Terrorism Act offences and breaching orders of the court designed to protect the public.

"You also have, I am sure from the evidence I heard at trial, an extremist mindset."

Sentencing him for sharing the Isis suicide bombing footage, HHJ Raferty said: "This offence is substantially aggravated by your previous convictions for terrorist offences.

"You also use a number of platforms, you targeted your message to other extremists, and you regularly changed your online names, no doubt to attempt to confuse investigators."

Regarding the breach of the notification order by hiding a telephone from the police, HHJ Rafferty said: "I find that your conduct was deliberate in hiding the telephone, you committed the offence on social media as with all your other offending."

She added: "The harm caused or foreseen would be ultimately very serious given the aims of extremist terrorism and the potentially devastating effect of acts of terror on the public.

"You hid material and phones from the police, and as I have said you had breached notification requirements previously."

Saleem was also sentenced for harassing the arresting officers who detained him at Heathrow Airport last year. During the arrest, he made homophobic remarks.

Describing the public order offence as "disgraceful conduct," HHJ Raferty said: "Your conduct was vitriolic and full of hate."

Saleem was previously jailed for two years for promoting Isis on social media, after using more than 20 profiles on Twitter and Instagram to promote the terror group as it continued its rampage across Iraq and Syria.

One of the posts on Twitter that led to his jailing was a photo of two zombie knives, which have since been outlawed, with a single-word caption: "itching".

Saleem also posted a photo of another man holding the weapons, captioned "dip dip dip," a street term for stabbing.

Isis-supporting knifemen have conducted multiple attacks in Britain since the so-called Islamic State was founded in Iraq and Syria.

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In their latest investigation into Saleem, detectives from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command trawled through over a terabyte of data recovered from his devices, which revealed a trove of pro-Isis and Al Qaeda-related material.

It included articles from terror publications and videos of slain Al Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden.

Retrieved footage also included a meeting between convicted terrorists Anjem Choudhary and Mizanur Rahman.

Choudary was yesterday sentenced to life imprisonment at Woolwich Crown Court after being convicted of directing the proscribed terrorist organisation Al-Muhajiroun.

Saleem was being sentenced after convictions for several separate charges, including a dissemination offence, failing to comply with notification requirements and a public order offence.

The public order offence relates to Saleem using threatening words towards officers when he was arrested at Heathrow on Valentine’s Day 2023.

Members of the team that arrested Saleem were present at the Old Bailey to see him sentenced.

In mitigation, defence barrister Shannon Revel said that Saleem had once been in a coma due to meningitis, which led to social withdrawal where he was attracted to an "online persona".

The defence added that Saleem had limited contributions to pro-Isis Telegram channels and social media groups, in one case asking whether it was permissible for a Muslim to work in the construction of a church.

Most of his posts, Revel added, were simple greetings.