Twitter user who published image of severed head sentenced to five and a half years in prison

A Twitter user has been jailed for more than five years after using the platform to publish images encouraging the beheading of teachers for blasphemy against Islam.

Ajmal Shahpal, 41, from Nottingham, made the comments shortly after a teacher was beheaded in France for showing his class cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed during a lesson on free speech.

Shahpal tweeted a picture of Samuel Paty's severed head with the comment: "Remove the head from the body, remove the head from the body."

Over several weeks, he "specifically encouraged" the readers of his tweets to "behead those who insulted his religion, Islam", Dan Pawson-Pounds, prosecuting, told Birmingham Crown Court.

He also sought to encourage attacks on the governments of countries he believed to be "acting against Islam", the prosecutor added.

"These were tweets encouraging people to behead those he considered to be blasphemous," Mr Pawson-Pounds said.

The judge told Shahpal that he had published a "graphic image of Mr Paty's severed head, together with praise and support for the person who committed the murder".

"Throughout the period of the indictment you expressed extreme Muslim ideology which included the immediate murder by beheading of anyone who you considered committed blasphemy against your religion," the judge added.

Shahpal was found guilty of two counts of encouraging terrorism and was sentenced to five and a half years in custody and another 12 months on extended licence.

Shahpal, who moved to Britain from Pakistani Kashmir in May 2009, published a series of tweets shortly after a two-week visit to Pakistan in September 2020.

The defendant was said to be a follower of an extremist party in Pakistan called the Tehreek-e-Labbaik (TLP) which takes a "well-known hard-line attitude" to what it considers to be insults directed at the religion of Islam and the Prophet Mohammed.

In court, Shahpal claimed he hardly spoke English and only wanted to "build my profile" in the hope that Twitter would pay him money, although he was banned repeatedly from the platform.

However, the court heard that he had worked in a pizza shop, passed an English and business management diploma and qualified as a taxi driver in Nottingham.

"Family, friends and acquaintances speak highly of him and were shocked by the messages. They could not believe that was his mindset," Yasin Patel, defending, said.

Shahpal issued an apology to the court saying his wife, who had arrived in Britain two weeks before his arrest, was "confined to her room because she is ashamed".