A British Muslim reported to have been killed in Syria ‘came back from the dead’ yesterday when he appeared in a London court charged with training to be a terrorist with an extremist Islamic group.
Just days after he supposedly died in the war-torn country, Imran Khawaja, 26, was appearing before magistrates accused of spending up to six months training with a group of British Jihadis affiliated to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), whose fighters are currently sweeping through Iraq.
Only last week, keen body-builder Khawaja, of Southall, west London, was reported to have been killed when the terrorist group Rayat al-Tawheed falsely announced his death.
But yesterday he appeared in the dock at Westminster Magistrates Court alongside his cousin Tahir Bhatti who is accused of helping Khawaja to buy an AK47 assault rifle and then driving him back from Bulgaria.
The pair were arrested by counter terrorism officers at Dover on Tuesday.
According to their charge sheets Khawaja is alleged to have ‘engaged in physical training’, bought flight tickets to Kurdistan and released cash from his bank account all with the intention of committing acts of terrorism. The preparation is said to have taken place in January this year.
The second charge Khawaja faces is of receiving ‘instruction or training’ in how to use firearms between January and June this year. He is also charged with spending the six-month period at a terrorist training camp.
Father-of-seven Bhatti, 44, of Watford, Herts, is accused of driving to Bulgaria to collect Khawaja, among a string of other offences relating to aiding and abetting the alleged terrorist.
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