London council worker jailed for two years over terrorism discs that contained footage of beheadings and executions

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

A council worker from London has been jailed for two years after admitting having 300 computer discs of terrorist material in his car and home.

Khalid Baqa, 48, worked as a revenue officer for the London Borough of Hackney, and was found to have one of the discs in his office computer, the Old Bailey heard.

The discs included al-Qa'ida's Inspire magazine, 39 Ways to Support and Participate in Jihad and 42 Ways to Support Jihad by Anwar al-Awlaki and contained 26 hours of speeches by the hate preacher Anwar al-Awlaki.

Baqa, who work colleagues said underwent a transformation in 1996 by growing a long beard, wearing traditional Muslim dress and shunning everyone, said he was storing the discs for someone else.

London's Old Bailey today heard the material contained footage of beheadings and executions, the explosions of improvised explosive devices, the last will and testament of one of the London bombers, footage of the 9/11 attacks and jihadi fighters in combat.

Sentencing Baqa, of Priory Road, Barking, east London, Judge Christopher Moss QC said: "The underlying message was one of encouragement and promotion of extremist violence, beliefs and glorification and encouragement of jihadi activity against those who didn't share such beliefs or who were opposed to them."

Baqa pleaded guilty earlier this month to two offences of disseminating terrorist publications.

A further seven offences of having material likely to be useful in terrorism were ordered to lie on file.

The charges related to between April and July last year when Baqa was arrested in a sweep of suspects before the Olympics in east London.

Andrew Hall QC, defending, said Baqa was storing the material for someone else but was reckless as to whether it would then be distributed.