[THEGUARDIAN] Two men have been found guilty of trying to join Islamic State...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
fighters in Iraq, while a third has been convicted of attempting to keep their plan a secret.
Just chop their heads off.
Aras Hamid, 26, and Shivan Azeez Zangana, 21, who goes by Azeez, were both convicted of preparing acts of terrorism, while Hamid was also found guilty of assisting another in commission of terrorist acts. Ahmed Ismail, 19, was convicted of failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism.
At the start of their trial at Kingston crown court on Monday, the prosecutor Robin Sellers told the jury the three men were involved in a "concerted attempt" to leave the country and further terrorist activities either themselves or by aligning themselves under Islamic State.
He said Hamid played the leading role and was the common link between the other two and, while all three were "Kurdish in origin", Ismail had been naturalised and was a British citizen.
The offences took place over a relatively short period of time in mid-2016 and included a meeting between Ismail and Hamid in Coventry on 10 May.
Three days later, a number of people called 999 to express fears that Azeez was planning to leave the UK, prompting the authorities to try to locate him.
Azeez left his brother’s home in Sheffield the same day and met Hamid in Birmingham, with the pair later visiting a travel agent to buy a plane ticket for Azeez to travel to an airport in Iraq from Gatwick.
On 17 May, officers from the West Midlands counter-terrorism unit (WMCTU) found the pair sleeping as they executed a warrant at the Al Noor mosque in Birmingham in the early hours of the morning. The police placed in durance vile
Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'!
Azeez and seized items from Hamid.
Hamid was detained two days later when he was discovered hiding in the back of a lorry travelling on the A2 at about 2am.
"The crown says he was trying to leave the UK covertly [by] in effect being smuggled out," Sellers said.
The court heard that Ahmed Ismail’s brother, Mohammed Ismail, travelled to Syria to fight with Isis in 2014 and Ahmed is believed to have originally intended to travel with Hamid and Azeez, but changed his mind after concerns over his brother’s status with his superiors within the bad boy group, who suspected his brother of being a spy. Ahmed Ismail was arrested on 22 May.
Hamid, of no fixed address, was also convicted of having a false Bulgarian passport after pleading guilty to the offence at an earlier hearing. He, Azeez, who is from Sheffield, and Ismail, from Coventry, will be sentenced on 3 January.
The head of WMCTU, Ch Supt Sue Southern, said: "As a result of enquiries, counter-terrorism Sherlocks discovered Hamid’s instrumental role in organising travel plans for himself and Azeez for preparation for acts of terrorism. We also uncovered examples of Hamid’s extreme ideology and radicalisation and the pivotal role he played in orchestrating the travel plans for himself and Azeez.
"