LONDON — Two British men who traveled to Syria to join the fight against the Assad regime armed with copies of "Arabic for Dummies" and "The Koran for Dummies" face record jail sentences of almost 18 years after pleading guilty to terrorist offenses.
Yusuf Sarwar and Mohammed Ahmed, both 22, can be released for the last five years of the term under extended bail, intended to "punish, deter and incapacitate" them, Judge Michael Topolski said as he delivered the heaviest punishment to date for Syrian related-offenses.
The pair, from Birmingham, bought the two reference books before traveling to the war-torn country in 2012. Sarwar's mother found a letter in her son's room saying he wanted to die a martyr and reported him to anti-terrorist police.
The six page letter showed that "without any doubt" they intended to be "martyred on the battlefields of Syria," said Topolski.
London police have arrested 215 people accused of a range of terrorist offenses so far this year. Britain has been under a "severe" terrorist threat since August as law enforcement officials grapple with radicalized individuals at home and abroad.
The men were arrested with memory cards containing thousands of photographs from Syria showing them holding weapons in combat zones. They also had balaclavas, binoculars and a video file explaining how to make a bomb.
"The definition passed by parliament of terrorism covers a very wide ambit," said Michael Ivers, Sarwar's lawyer.
The pair are the second group of people to be sent to jail on returning from Syria. Two brothers were sentenced to as much as 4 1/2 years for traveling to a training camp in the country.
Sarwar, wasn't traveling to Syria to commit acts of terrorism against the "civilian population," he was "concerned at what he saw happening in Syria."
Sarwar is "proud to be British," Ivers Said. "He is proud of his grandfather who fought with the British in Kenya."
"He is a rather thoughtful young man," he said. "He made a startling decision for someone like him."
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