London – An al-Qaeda-inspired computer expert who dubbed himself “the jihadist James Bond” was sentenced to 10 years in prison Thursday for running a network of extremist websites and hoarding videos of the murders of Americans Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl.
Morocco-born Younis Tsouli, 23, who prosecutors said uploaded guides to building suicide vests onto the Internet, used the online ID “irhabi007” – the Arabic word for terrorist and the code number of the fictional British spy.
With accomplices Tariq al-Daour and Waseem Mughal, who also got prison terms Thursday, Tsouli offered advice and motivation to would-be terrorists on myriad Web pages run from their London homes, prosecutors said.
The group was the leading distributor of terrorist material on the Internet before the three were arrested in 2005, said Evan Kohlmann, a U.S.-based terrorism consultant who gave evidence in the case.
All three pleaded guilty Wednesday to inciting others to commit acts of terrorism. Al-Daour, 21, who prosecutors said hoped to study law, was sentenced to 6 1/2 years, and biochemistry graduate Mughal, 24, got 7 1/2 years.
They agreed to plead guilty earlier this year while undergoing a jury trial.
Images of Washington, D.C., were found on Tsouli’s computer hard drive, stored alongside details of how to make car bombs, cause explosions and produce poisons, prosecutors had told jurors.
U.S. law enforcement officials have said the Capitol building was featured in short video clips.
During the trial, prosecutors also detailed the message traffic on Internet forums run by the men.
One message read: “We are 45 doctors and we are determined to undertake jihad and take the battle inside America.”
Despite the chilling similarity to attempted car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow, Scotland, last week, police officials said they had found no links between the two groups.
The case marks the first terrorism convictions in Britain based purely on evidence about use of the Internet, Judge Charles Openshaw said.
Openshaw said Tsouli was a danger even though “he came no closer to a bomb or a firearm than a computer keyboard.”
Tsouli had a clear link to the then-leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed by a U.S. airstrike last year, Kohlmann said.
