An Islamic State sympathiser who gained notoriety as a social media propagandist for the terrorist outfit at the height of its rise in Syria in 2014 was sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of terrorism and waging war against an Asiatic ally by a special court in Bengaluru on Wednesday.
Mehdi Masroor Biswas, 34, who was arrested in 2014, has already been in prison for over nine years and will be in prison for the remainder of his term. Biswas was convicted on the charges on January 16.
According to the special court order, Biswas was “sentenced to undergo simple imprisonment for a period of ten years and liable to pay a fine of Rs 50,000/- for the offence punishable under Section 18B of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967,” for recruiting people for terrorist acts. In default of payment of the fine, he will undergo simple imprisonment for one year.
Similarly, Biswas has been sentenced to 10 years in jail with a fine of Rs 50,000 on charges of supporting a terrorist organisation (section 39 of the UAPA) and for waging war against an Asiatic ally of India (section 125 of the Indian Penal Code).
He has been sentenced to seven years in prison with a fine of Rs 25,000 for taking part in unlawful activities (section 13 of the UAPA) and three years in prison with a fine of Rs 10,000 under IPC sections 153A (promoting enmity between communities) and 505 (1) and (2) for public mischief.
The “substantial sentences in respect of all the above offences shall run concurrently” and “the period of detention undergone by the accused in judicial custody shall be set off against the term of imprisonment imposed on him as provided under section 428 of CrPC”, the court ruled.
The fine recovered from Biswas will be used to cover the expenses incurred by the prosecution.
The court has, however, acquitted him of charges of waging war against the Government of India under IPC section 121 and cyber terrorism under section 66F of the Information Technology Act. It has also kept in abeyance a verdict on charges of sedition under IPC section 124A on account of a Supreme Court moratorium on the use of the clause.
Predicting ISIS beheadings on Twitter
Mehdi Masroor Biswas was arrested as a 24-year-old in Bengaluru on December 13, 2014, after the UK’s Channel 4 revealed that he was behind the @shamiwitness Twitter handle that was helping British ISIS recruits join the terror outfit in Syria.
Biswas, who worked for the food manufacturing unit of a well-known Indian business group in 2014, was arrested by the Bengaluru Central Crime Branch police and the Internal Security Department.
The police filed a 36,986-page chargesheet against Biswas in June 2015. Though he was never physically associated with ISIS, Biswas accumulated knowledge about the outfit by spending hours aggregating data on radical Islamic activities in the Middle East to disseminate information from his Twitter handle.
He was accused of predicting on Twitter the beheadings of US journalist James Foley and UK aid worker Peter Kassig several weeks before ISIS killed them. He was also accused of calling for ISIS support in Kashmir, tweeting that Kashmir militants were martyrs, and frequently retweeted posts about the life of UK jihadist Iftekhar Jaman.
The chargesheet in the case contained over 15,000 images related to ISIS activities in Syria and Iraq and dozens of links advocating the terror outfit’s cause as tweeted by @shamiwitness.
“Between January 25, 2013 and December 11, 2014, the accused using a fake email ID and special VPN software concealed his identity and using information available on the internet tweeted 1,22,203 messages in support of the IS and its terrorists,” the police stated in 2015.
Guiding westerners to reach Syria
Biswas reportedly acquired inside information about ISIS by communicating with jihadists associated with the outfit through Twitter. He also allegedly guided westerners trying to cross over from Turkey to Syria to join ISIS.
The CCB team led by then assistant commissioner of police MK Thammaiah placed 855 pages of chat history between Biswas and known ISIS fighters in court. It also produced a voice analysis report of a chat Biswas had with Channel 4 where he said he wanted to join ISIS.
“He got interested in the Levant or Sham region in the Middle East consisting of countries like Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon from 2009. He used to work in his office during the day and would be active on the internet late into the night. He took a 60GB monthly internet connection and used to read all breaking news sites related to the Islamic State,” the police added.
Biswas first started tweeting with the identity @elsalvator before creating the @shamiwitness account using an elsalvator email identity, which eventually led to the revelation of his real identity through a Facebook account by Channel 4.