A man who shared extremist material online before traveling abroad to join the Islamic State terrorist group in Syria has been jailed.
Stefan Aristidou, 27, of no fixed address, was sentenced on October 1 to 28 months’ imprisonment at the Old Bailey court in London, U.K. after admitting to four counts of dissemination of terrorist material (contrary to section 2 of the Terrorism Act 2006) at a previous hearing.
Aristidou’s family feared he had traveled to Syria and reported him missing in April 2015. In their efforts to locate Aristidou, detectives looked on his computer, where they found evidence that Aristidou had shared violent extremist material with another person.
Aristidou’s conversations indicated that he had left the U.K. to join IS in Syria. He was arrested by police in Turkey in April 2017, and later convicted and jailed for being a member of a terrorist organisation by the Turkish authorities.
Aristidou, a British national, was deported back to the U.K. on February 3, 2020 following his release from prison in Turkey, and when he arrived at Heathrow Airport he was arrested by officers in relation to the terrorist material he shared.
Commander Richard Smith, head of the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, said: “This case is a reminder that if you commit terrorism offenses in the U.K., police will seek to prosecute you – no matter how much time has elapsed.
“Extremist propaganda of the kind Aristidou shared shows graphic acts of terrorist violence, and promotes a hateful, toxic ideology. Aristidou will now spend more time in jail for this offending.”
Read more at the Metropolitan Police
