Woman sentenced for possessing pro-IS video

A jury at the Old Bailey convicted Dzhamilya Timaeva of possessing a terrorist document

A 20-year-old woman who was convicted of possessing a pro-Islamic State group video has been sentenced to a two-year community order.

Dzhamilya Timaeva, from Windsor, Berkshire, was 17 when she was stopped at Heathrow Airport as she travelled to Turkey with her family in October 2022.

Counter-terrorism detectives found the pro-Islamic State group video entitled "incite the believers" on her mobile phone, which she had downloaded via the Telegram app.

In January, a jury convicted her of possessing a terrorist document. They found the dental nurse not guilty of disseminating terrorist publications.

Timaeva was stopped at the airport because she had been on the Channel scheme - which is part of the government's counter-extremism Prevent programme.

Narrated in English, the video called on Muslims to find simple weapons and cause "deaths or casualties" by "setting fires or using vehicles".

Parts of the video suggested potential targets for arson attacks such as "forests, fields, cities and villages".

The four-minute video ended with the Islamic State group flag.

Timaeva had originally been referred to the Channel programme by her school, because of an image she sent on Snapchat when she was 16 of Adolf Hitler with the words "let me salute to Hitler the great".

The court heard Timaeva's family were from Chechnya but she was born in Kazakhstan and then came to the UK with her family in 2013.

They were granted refugee status in 2019 and moved from Cardiff to Windsor.

Timaeva had applied to teach at the Al-Tawheed Islamic Education Centre in Maidenhead and was listed as a teacher for the Windsor Muslim Association, the jury heard.

At her trial she denied supporting the Islamic State group or being a "terrorist". She claimed her fight was in defence of Chechnya.

His Honour Judge Mark Lucraft KC, the Recorder of London, sentenced her to a 24-month community order, including 120 hours of unpaid work.

He also said she must not delete any internet usage history unless authorised by her supervising police officer.

Timaeva's mother Zha Shik has organised an online petition calling for "an independent inquiry into the unjust and costly persecution of Dzhamilya Timaeva".

The petition says her entire family "have endured over two years of relentless persecution by the police, social services, and other authorities" and "reputational destruction by the media".