The joint investigation by the Metropolitan Police and MI5 into Choudary was supported by the New York Police Department (NYPD) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

After a six-week trial at Woolwich Crown Court, Choudary, 57 (born 18 January 1976), from East London, was found guilty on Tuesday, 23 July of directing a terrorist organization, membership of a proscribed organization, and encouraging support for a terrorist organization.

Khaleed Hussein, 29 (born 17 March 1995), from Edmonton, Canada, was also found guilty of membership of a proscribed organization.

In July 2021, the license conditions linked to Choudary’s previous terrorism conviction in 2016 expired, and officers became increasingly concerned that he would re-engage with terrorist activity.

The investigation into Choudary culminated in his arrest almost two years later.

It was thanks to information provided to the Counter Terrorism Command (CTC) by colleagues from the NYPD and the RCMP that detectives in London were able to piece together evidence that Choudary was running and directing what was, in effect, the banned terror group Al-Muhajiroun (ALM) via online lectures with followers based in New York.

CTC detectives were alerted to the fact that Choudary was becoming involved in a group called the “Islamic Thinkers Society” when the NYPD contacted them in Autumn 2021 in relation to an undercover investigation they were carrying out into ITS.

Detectives here worked closely with colleagues from the NYPD to build a picture of the group and identify how Choudary was becoming increasingly involved.

In May 2022, CTC detectives were further contacted by colleagues in the RCMP, who were also investigating a Canadian called Khaled Hussein.

An undercover officer from the RCMP was in touch with Hussein and had identified a further connection between Hussein and Choudary in London.

NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism Rebecca Ulam Weiner and RCMP Assistant Commissioner Lisa Moreland, Regional Commander for the Northwest Region, provided crucial evidence.

Evidence from Canada showed how Hussein was effectively acting as a personal assistant to Choudary.

Hussein helped him host online lectures with other extremists and edited extremist online blogs and publications for Choudary.

Over the succeeding months, information, intelligence, and evidence were gathered together by the investigation team, which built a picture that the ITS group in New York was a continuation and extension of the proscribed terrorist organization ALM.

Crucial evidence was identified from both NYPD and RCMP undercover officers, which confirmed the explicit link between ALM and ITS.

In one voice note sent to the Canadian officer, Hussein described ITS as an extension of ALM.

Evidence from the NYPD officers also showed how Choudary was hosting and running lectures for the ITS group via encrypted platforms.

In the meantime, police and MI5 continued to gather other intelligence and evidence here in the UK, and officers also traveled to the US and Canada to ensure key evidence could be secured for use in the UK.

In total, officers trawled through hundreds of hours of audio and video content and assessed over 16,000 documents, working through more than a decade of material to identify and prove the links between ALM, ITS, and Choudary.

Among the audio content were covert recordings from Choudary’s address, where he was heard having conversations with his wife about being involved in ALM activity, and also captured a conversation between Choudary and Omar Bakri Muhammad – the former leader of ALM.

Bakri and Choudary discussed the activities of various people who had former links to ALM, and crucially, Choudary also confirmed during one conversation that he had taken the role of leading ALM as its “caretaker emir” in 2014 while Bakri had been imprisoned for terrorism offenses in Lebanon.

Evidence gathered by the investigation team also showed how, over the past decade, the ALM group had encouraged and assisted various people in joining and fighting for Daesh and that Choudary was now seeking to influence and radicalize a new generation of extremists and encourage them to go and support terrorist causes around the world.

In July 2023, UK detectives became aware via the undercover RCMP officer that Hussein planned to visit Choudary in London, and officers moved to arrest the pair.

Hussein was arrested on 17 July 2023 as he arrived on a flight into London from Canada, with Choudary arrested earlier that morning.

After carrying out more inquiries while they were in police custody, the pair were charged on 23 July 2023.

They were convicted as above and are both due to be sentenced at Woolwich Crown Court on 30 July.