Anjem Choudary 'copycat' arrested by terror police in London

A man has been arrested on suspicion of encouraging support of a terror group in an alleged offence similar to that committed by jailed hate preacher Anjem Choudary.

Terror police arrested a 44-year-old man in north west London on Wednesday (7 September) on suspicion of encouragement of terrorism and dissemination of terrorist publications.

"The man was arrested in north-west London at around 6am and is currently in custody at a central London police station," a Met Police statement said. "Officers are currently executing search warrants at residential addresses in both north-west London and central London."

The terror swoop came one day after Anjem Choudary and Mohammed Mizanur Rahman were jailed for five years and six months in prison after a trial at the Old Bailey. Choudary, 49, of Hampton Road, Ilford and Rahman, 33, of North Circular Road, Palmers Green were both found guilty of encouraging support for Isis between 29 June 2014 and 6 March 2015.

The pair pledged their allegiance to Isis using Mohammed Fachry, a convicted terrorist, to publish the oath that had been signed off by Choudary, on an Indonesian website. Their sentence came almost two years after they were arrested and after an investigation revealed 20 years worth of material with more than 333 electronic devices containing 12.1 terabytes of storage data.