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British mother of six jailed for inciting terrorism on social media

December 11, 2014

A mother of six from southeast England has been jailed for more than five years for promoting terrorism on social media. 35-year-old Runa Khan pleaded guilty to related charges at a London court.

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Runa Khan
Image: picture alliance/empics/Mercer

A British mother of six was handed a prison sentence of five years and three months on Thursday after she admitted to several counts of distributing terrorist publications via Facebook.

Runa Khan, from Luton in southeast England, pleaded guilty to four charges of disseminating terrorist publications between July and September 2013, including sending Facebook posts containing a picture of a suicide vest with the words "sacrifice your life to be in Islam."

One count related to the 35-year-old passing on details to another online user on how to travel from Turkey to Syria for the purpose of joining the conflict there.

A court also heard how she had described on the social media website how fighters could gain entry into Syria, adding: "Sisters, if you love your sons, husbands and brothers, prove it by sending them to fight for Allah."

Court hearing

Kingston Crown Court, in the southeastern county of Surrey, heard that Khan had a photograph on her mobile phone of her two-year-old son with a toy rifle and a jihadist book.

The hearing was also told that she had praised an article on how to prepare young children for jihad.

The AFP news agency quoted part of the article which read: "Don't underestimate the lasting effects of what those little ears take in during the first few years of life!" and also, "No child is ever too young to be started off on jihad training in one form or another."

Khan also posted a message on the social media wesbite which read: "Zipping up my 8 year old boys jacket as he wants to play outside for a bit. I pictured the future while I was zipping up his jacket, in sha Allah ill be tying the shahada bandana round his forehead and hand him his rifle and send him out to play the big boys game. Allahu Akbar."

Judge Peter Birts told the hearing that a custodial sentence was inevitable given the "utmost gravitas" of the charges.

After sentencing, Commander Richard Walton, Head of the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command said, "This is a case of social media being used as a tool for terrorism. Khan used it to spread extremism, radicalise others and justify children being used for terrorism.

"We aim to make the Internet a more hostile environment for terrorists; today's sentence supports that aim," he added.

lw/mg (AFP, dpa, Reuters)