Radical preacher sentenced for supporting ISIS

A British court sentenced a well-known radical Islamic preacher to 5 1/2 years in prison today for supporting Islamic State (ISIS). For years, Anjem Choudary pushed the legal limits of radicalism with his preaching and activism. Several of his followers were convicted of violent attacks, including a pair of al-Qaeda-inspired killers who murdered British soldier Lee Rigby in 2013. Authorities last year charged Choudary under the Terrorism Act for pledging allegiance to the “Islamic Caliphate State” in an oath circulated online. “We have watched Choudary developing a media career as spokesman for the extremists, saying the most distasteful of comments, but without crossing the criminal threshold,” said Dean Haydon, head of the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command. “At last we had the evidence that they had stepped over the line.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.