Liverpool barber shared IS beheadings video on WhatsApp group

A barber who admitted sending propaganda videos from the organisation calling itself Islamic State (IS) to a WhatsApp group has been jailed.

Liverpool Crown Court heard one of the videos Mohammed Hamad shared in January 2023 was of three prisoners being beheaded in a street.

The 30-year-old, who on Tuesday pleaded guilty to two counts of disseminating terrorist publications, was sentenced on Friday to four years in prison.

It can now also be reported that three other men from the WhatsApp group are already serving custodial sentences.

The court heard that when Hamad was arrested at his Liverpool home in March 2024, he claimed to have “lost my phone a long time ago”.

Prosecutor David Earl said Hamad, who was born in Iraq, came to the UK illegally from Iraqi Kurdistan in 2016.

Hamad told authorities his life would be in danger were he to return home, and he also claimed he would be arrested.

The court heard Hamad said he studied the Quran with preacher Mulla Shwan, but that the latter had recently “joined Daesh”.

Daesh is the Arabic name for the group calling itself Islamic State.

The movement took over huge swathes of Syria and Iraq in 2014, drawing notoriety for its record of violence.

Categorised as a terrorist group by the UK government, IS was driven out of power in 2019.

Experts said the group was “down but not out”.

After he was arrested, Hamad told police: “Because I was [Mulla Shwan’s] student, police called me to attend a meeting so I’ve run away for my life.”

The court heard Hamad was in a WhatsApp group, set up in June 2022, with people who shared his beliefs and support for IS.

The group had an introductory message of “We have given a pledge of allegiance to almighty Allah that we will come to you under the flag of the Islamic State caliphate in whatever hole you are in this world.

“Otherwise we will, by Allah, separate your head from your body.”

One video on the WhatsApp group showed a shackled soldier who was on fire.

Liverpool Crown Court was also told that Hamad first shared a video within the group in December 2022.

It referred to IS fighters being skilled in using improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

A month later, Hamad sent another video, showing the beheading of three prisoners.

This followed a speech from a man who said he was acting in revenge for an attack on Muslims, promising: “We will slaughter you one by one.”

Mr Earl said: “The videos were sent intending them to be a direct or indirect encouragement or other inducement to the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.”

Kate O’Raghallaigh, mitigating, said there was “evidence which is entirely consistent with this man being, in his real life, consistently a hard-working local barber in Liverpool”.

She described Hamad as a man who was “not religious, not devout” and somebody who “attends nightclubs and so forth”.

Passing sentence, Judge Neil Flewitt KC said: “It is said that you live a characteristic Western lifestyle, with many gay and lesbian friends, respecting everyone equally.

“On that basis, it is submitted that these offences represent an aberration in your life and undermine any suggestion that you are a committed ideologue.”

But he said he had “some difficulty with that submission, because another interpretation of that material is that it demonstrates the hypocrisy of a person who is willing publicly to embrace a Western lifestyle while privately supporting a terrorist organisation whose objective is to destroy it”.

In addition to jailing Hamad for four years, the judge also imposed restrictions upon him for 10 years under counter-terrorism legislation.

The earlier convictions of three other men can only now be revealed following the lifting of reporting restrictions.

Roshman Saaed, 30, was jailed for 12 years last year after he was found guilty in Birmingham of six counts of dissemination of a terrorist publication – three of which were shared to the same messaging group – and one count of entering into a terrorist funding arrangement.

Tshko Mohamad, 33, from West Bromwich, was jailed for seven years after he was convicted of entering into a terrorist funding arrangement.

And Omar Ahmadi, 24, from Sheffield, was jailed for five years and seven months after pleading guilty to the same offence.

Det Supt Annie Miller, from Counter Terrorism Policing West Midlands, said the men were all involved in supporting IS.

“The group chat was used to promote propaganda and arrange to raise money in the UK to then send to IS to support their activities,” she said.