Admin l Friday, September 22, 2017
KINGSTON, London – A man has been jailed for six-and-a-half years for posting and sharing terrorist-related content through a number of Facebook accounts. Hussain Yousef, 21 of Brent, NW6 was found guilty at Kingston Crown Court on Friday, 22 September of three terrorism offences:
Collection of information which may be useful to someone who commits or prepares acts of terrorism (contrary to section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000); Encouragement of terrorism (contrary to s.1 TACT 2006); and Dissemination of terrorist publications (contrary to s.2 TACT 2006).
Commander Dean Haydon, from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command said: “Yousef was sharing content, images and videos of the terrorist activities of Daesh through his various Facebook accounts and trying to get others to support their evil and hateful ideology.
“This case was brought to our attention thanks to members of the public reporting it to us and I continue to urge anyone who see terrorist or extremist material online to ACT and report it via the online reporting tool.”
In November 2015, police received reports from members of the public, concerned about the content on two separate Facebook accounts which contained extremist Islamist views and material. An investigation into the accounts was launched by officers from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command which led to them identifying Hussain Yousef as the suspected account owner.
Further enquiries led to officers identifying a total of six Facebook accounts they believed were linked to Yousef where he had posted extremist Islamist or terrorist-related material.
Officers arrested Yousef on 20 July 2016 in West London, near to a fast food restaurant he was working at. During his arrest, officers seized a mobile phone which was later analysed. It was discovered that Yousef had used it to log into the various Facebook accounts.
Extremist and terrorist-related material found on the accounts included Daesh-related videos and images, including a number of executions and propaganda materialls. Yousef also posted a list containing information purporting to be details of US military personnel, including addresses, and could be used by others wanting to commit terrorist offences.
He was charged in July 2016 and following a trial at Kingston Crown Court, he was found guilty of the three offences as above. He was found not guilty of one count of encouragement of terrorism and one count of dissemination of terrorist publications.
He was sentenced to six years and six months’ imprisonment for the collection of information which may be useful to someone who commits or prepares acts of terrorism and three years’ imprisonment – to run concurrently – for the counts of encouragement of terrorism and dissemination of terrorist publications respectively. The judge also ordered Yousef to be deported from the UK upon completion of his sentence.
Terrorist or extremist material online can be reported at www.gov.uk/report-terrorism.
