A British citizen who was imprisoned in Connecticut for supporting terrorism has just returned to the U.K.
Babar Ahmad was charged in Connecticut in 2004 with raising funds for terrorists through a group of websites which promoted violent jihad. The indictment came from Connecticut because the websites ran through a web company based in the state.
He was arrested, incarcerated in Britain, and spent eight years fighting extradition to the U.S.
Ahmad, an engineer with a master’s degree from the University of London, was finally extradited in 2012 and imprisoned here in Connecticut.
In 2013, he pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in New Haven to conspiring to provide and providing material support to terrorists. He was sentenced to 12 and a half years in prison, with credit for time served. At his sentencing Judge Janet Hall said although Ahmad supported the Taliban, he had “absolutely no interest in operational terrorist actions that would harm the United States” .
He just been reunited with his family in Britain. In a statement Ahmad says “11 years of solitary confinement and isolation in ten different prisons has been an experience too profound to sum up in a few words. In October 2012, I was blindfolded, shackled and forcibly stripped naked when I was extradited to the U.S. Last week, US and UK government officials treated me with courtesy and respect during my journey home.”
Babar Ahmad is seen as one of the first to recognize the power of the internet to attract people to global jihad.
