A British student who said he was ‘brainwashed’ as he was jailed after attempting to travel to Syria to fight for ISIS.
Ednane Mahmood, aged 19, was found guilty of disseminating a terrorist publication and engaging in conduct in preparation of acts of terrorism.
He was sentenced to four years in prison.
Mahmood, who was studying Arabic at university, downloaded graphic videos, the court heard during his trial.
They included the beheading of aid worker David Haines, and charity volunteer Alan Henning kneeling on the ground after his kidnap.
He travelled on a bus to a town in Turkey close to the Syrian border and tried to make contact with a number of people asking for urgent help, including one man he believed was fighting in Syria at the time.
On August 31 last year he posted an image on Facebook with the message: “I wish I could fight in the cause of Allah and then be killed, and then fight, and then be killed, and then fight, and then be killed.”
During his defence, he claimed he wanted to “help the Syrian people” and had an interest in the country “from the beginning of the war, because of all the suffering”.
Sentencing him, Judge Michael Henshell said the defendant’s research into the group became a “dangerous obsession”.
He told Mahmood: “My assessment of you is you were and, to some extent, are a naive, unsophisticated individual who has so far lived a fairly sheltered life.”
Read More: ISIS: Teenage British Muslim was brainwashed by terror thugs over social media
