A guy who applauded the killer of French teacher Samuel Paty and uploaded photographs of his severed head was sentenced to five and a half years in jail by a UK court on Thursday.
Ajmal Shahpal, 41, was found guilty in March at Birmingham Crown Court of encouraging individuals to "commit, prepare, or instigate acts of terrorism."
Shahpal hailed the perpetrator of Paty, a French secondary school teacher killed by an extremist in October 2020, as "as brave as a lion" on Twitter.
He also uploaded an image of Paty's severed head lying on the street, with the caption, "the insolent had been sent to hell."
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"You advocated extreme Muslim ideology, involving the immediate execution by decapitation of anyone considered to have done blasphemy against your religion," said Judge Melbourne Inman during the sentencing.
Shahpal was apprehended in March 2021 at his home in Nottingham, central England, after tweeting statements supporting a Pakistan-based political organisation promoting the execution of alleged blasphemers.
Some tweets were posted to his public account in September 2020, one day after a second attack on the French satirical newsfeed Charlie Hebdo.
During the trial, Shahpal said he retweeted other people's opinions "just to get more followers."
