An Iraqi-born barber has been jailed for four years for sending propaganda videos from the terrorist group calling itself the Islamic State to a WhatsApp group.
Mohammed Hamad, 30, pleaded guilty on Tuesday, the first day of his trial at Liverpool Crown Court, to two counts of disseminating terrorist publications from the so-called Islamic State (IS), also known as Daesh.
At his sentencing hearing on Friday, David Earl, prosecuting, said Hamad had come to the UK illegally from Iraqi Kurdistan in 2016.
He told authorities his life would be in danger and he would be arrested if he returned to his home country, the court heard.
Hamad said he had been a student of preacher Mulla Shwan, who he said used to teach him the Koran but had recently “joined Daesh”.
He told interviewers: “Because I was his student, police called me to attend a meeting so I’ve run away for my life.”
The court heard in June 2022, a WhatsApp group was set up, including Hamad, with the introductory message: “Swearing by the almighty Allah, we have given a pledge of allegiance to almighty Allah that we will come to you under the flag of the Islamic State caliphate in whatever hole you are in this world.
“Otherwise we will, by Allah, separate your head from your body.”
Hamad shared a “pro-Islamic State mindset” with others in the group, the court heard.
One video shared by another user showed a shackled soldier on fire with the caption: “It contains roasting. It is very tasty.”
The court heard Hamad sent two videos in the group.
Mr Earl said the first, sent on December 9 2022, showed someone who claimed to be a student of Mulla Shwan, who appeared in numerous IS videos before he was killed, alongside other IS fighters, in 2015.
The video referred soldiers of the so-called Islamic State and to “brothers” being skilled in “IED”, meaning improvised explosive devices, Mr Earl said.
A second video was sent by Hamad on January 18 and showed three prisoners being beheaded in the street.
In a speech before the beheading, the man in the video said he was acting in revenge for an attack on Muslim people and promised: “We will slaughter you one by one.”
Mr Earl said: “The videos were sent intending them to be a direct or indirect encouragement or other inducement to the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.”
When Hamad, who had a Kurdish Sorani interpreter in the dock, was arrested at his home in Wavertree, Liverpool, in March last year, he told officers: “I lost my phone a long time ago. I want a solicitor.”
Kate O’Raghallaigh, defending, said: “The court has seen evidence which is entirely consistent with this man being, in his real life, consistently a hard-working local barber in Liverpool who is not religious, not devout, leads a typical western lifestyle, attends nightclubs and so forth.”
Judge Neil Flewitt KC asked: “Doesn’t it rather beg the question, which is the real life?”
Photographs of Hamad at social events, including his own wedding, were submitted to the court along with a letter from his wife, who sat in the public gallery.
Sentencing, Judge Flewitt said: “It is said that you live a characteristic western lifestyle, with many gay and lesbian friends, respecting everyone equally.
“On that basis, it is submitted that these offences represent an aberration in your life and undermine any suggestion that you are a committed ideologue.
“I have some difficulty with that submission because another interpretation of that material is that it demonstrates the hypocrisy of a person who is willing publicly to embrace a western lifestyle while privately supporting a terrorist organisation whose objective is to destroy it.”
The judge also made Hamad subject to notification provisions of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 for 10 years.
