Terror charge students locked up

The Bradford University students were arrested after London Muslim schoolboy Mohammed Irfan Raja ran away from home in February last year.

He left a note for his parents saying he was going to fight abroad and they would meet again in heaven, the Old Bailey heard.

Raja had been recruited by the students on the internet and exchanged terrorist propaganda with them before going to stay with them.

But he returned home three days later after a tearful telephone call in which his parents begged him to come back.

The prosecution said they were all planning to go to Pakistan for training before going to fight jihad.

Raja, 19, of Ilford, east London, and students Awaab Iqbal, 20, of Grove Terrace, Bradford; Aitzaz Zafar, 20, of Bishop Street, Rochdale, Lancashire; Usman Ahmed Malik, 21, of Laisteridge Lane, Bradford, West Yorkshire; Akbar Butt, 20, of Southall, west London; and Awaab Iqbal, 20, of Grove Terrace, Bradford, faced charges for having extreme material on their computers.

Raja was given two years youth detention, Zafar and Iqbal were given three years detention, Malik was sent to prison for three years and Butt was given 27 months detention.

The court was told police found material downloaded from various internet sites and chatroom conversations said to be intended to encourage terrorism or martyrdom.

Raja's parents searched his computer when he failed to return home from school in February last year. They found a martyrdom song.