A court in Britain has jailed the country's best-known radical Muslim cleric for five and a half years for urging support of Daesh .
Anjem Choudary, whose supporters have been linked with extremist attacks around the world, was found guilty by a jury in July of using online lectures and messages to encourage support for the banned Islamic extremists. He denied his guilt and insisted the trial was politically motivated.
Born in Welling in 1967, Choudary was a solicitor for a time before he was removed from the rolls in 2002. By 1999 he was a preacher attracting official attention for his radicalism and recruitment of young British Muslims to fight abroad.
Among his statements to attract national news coverage he praised the authors of 9-11, said Buckingham Palace should be turned into a mosque, called for Sharia law for Britain, and refused to criticise the authors of the 2005 London bombings.
