A Birmingham man has been jailed for terrorism offences after being found guilty of being a member of a proscribed organisation and sharing extremist material on a WhatsApp group.
Kyle Marcano, aged 28, from Birmingham, was found guilty after a trial at Birmingham Crown Court in April of four counts of dissemination of terrorist publications and one count of membership of a proscribed organisation.
He was jailed yesterday for 11 years.
Kyle Marcano, 28, from Birmingham
During the trial, the court heard that Marcano had been in a chat group which shared terrorism material. Marcano had pledged an oath of allegiance to the then leader of Daesh, also known as Islamic State. Marcano was also found guilty of sending terrorist publications with intent, including a Daesh recruitment video.
Marcano pleaded guilty to four offences last November including sending terrorist publications.
Marcano was arrested in March 2023 for an unrelated offence where officers seized his phone which was subsequently examined revealing his inclusion in the chat group which shared terrorism material. He was then arrested for terrorism offences.
A second man, who was also part of the same chat group, pleaded guilty at a hearing in January this year. Muhammed Maroof, aged 19 from Birmingham, pleaded guilty to four offences of distributing terrorist material. He was sentenced to four years and 10 months earlier this year.
Head of CTP West Midlands CTU, Detective Chief Superintendent Alison Hurst, said:
“The jury found Marcano guilty of being a fully-fledged member of Daesh from the evidence that was presented during the trial. Marcano and Maroof knowingly shared videos and images containing very disturbing and dangerous content. We will continue to protect local communities by working with partners and the CPS to pursue and prosecute all those who show support for terrorism. We work tirelessly to counter terrorism. Our absolute priority is to ensure the safety and security of the people who live, work and visit the West Midlands area.”
Didn’t the white guy who hosted a far right website get 11 years
I thought this was a defence journal as opposed to a homeland security journal…I wish they would focus on defence in their articles.
Hi Andrew.
For once, we disagree. Terrorism for me is very much defence related. Parts of the military have a homeland CT, security role.
Also, I myself consider the intelligence community, and the regional Police CTUs, who help defend against this sort of activity, as vital to the defence of Britain as the military.
It’s the Scottish ferry ones I don’t get, defence wise. But it’s the owners site and he puts what he likes here, which is fine.
I get what you are saying Daniele and I think you are one of the best and most informed posters on this site. I like reading your balanced posts. However, half of me feels to me like they are playing us a little bit. Articles where they are deliberately provoking a response because we know people are not equal before the law and certain people get less time than others for political reasons (see Tim’s excellent post). Most of the MSN does the same thing…plays both sides to whip up anger and frustrations as click bait. I wish they would just summarize things about counterterrorism focussed on overseas issues and not specifics. For example, they could talk about the technology or geopolitical issues whcih could make excellent articles along the lines you mentioned. In febrile times with the government jailing people for comments made online (however, provocative) it makes me feel like we are being manipulated by both the government and MSN to give up our fundamental rights enshrined in the Magna Carta because we are fearful of terrorism from both the left and right….maybe this is paranoia. I’ll read the defence journal but my commenting days are done now….don’t want the government thought police tapping on the shoulder for thinking the wrong things….Britain 2024 says it all really…
Take care Andrew. đź‘ŤGB
Before I’m off for good read this excellent article by Isabel Oakeshott:
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/video-took-leeds-sums-why-170000876.html
21st Century Britain…I grew up in the 1970s and early 1980s in an impoverished single parent household (life was very grim but I have an excellent career now). Never thought I would see the white working class reduced to the circumstances I grew up in. This article by Isabel makes you really think hard and deep about the values of modern Britain….and they wonder why this anger just sprang up from no where….when we don’t look after our own people but we care more about someone from overseas that came into the illegally and then these very same people bite the hand that feeds.
Andrew, I think you are describing in a nutshell one of the most profound struggles the west faces…our freedom or shall we say wish for freedom of expression and speech make our societies very easy to attack using political warfare and we do need to take Great care in that…but how we take care is to not fear discourse..but instead guard against violent disagreements and a fractured society…so don’t fear to say what you feel ( as our enemies win).
my personal view ( and I know I somehow fail ) is to try and respect others right to have a view, even if I don’t agree with it, while expressing my own view….if we all just give our viewpoint in a respectful way..while strongly reject any violent or anti social movement ( left, right or extremist) we are fighting the good fight and thwarting our enemies..and we have a lot of enemies, be they state actors ( china, Russia, Iran ) or non state actors, far right, communists and religious extremists…
It’s called political warfare Andrew and I guarantee you china thinks it’s the way it can beat the west.The creation of far right, far left and religious fundamentalist movements in the UK, linked to political mistrust and miss information flows is how China Russia and Iran think they can win….look at our streets, look at the political dialogue in the U.S. are they wrong. The greatest victory comes from subverting your enemy via political warfare to the point they are so paralysed that you don’t even need to fight their army…..or that they simply give up…the US for all its might has lost two major wars against minnow enemies ..simply because it gave up.
We may think building ships, bombs and armies is the only answer..china is building ships but also employs 3 million political warfare operatives.to destroy our cohesion, will and ability to resist…it also protects own cohesion, will and ability to resist by investing about the same level of spend on its armed forces as it does in internal security….winning wars and defence is about so much more that the army, navy and airforce you have in front of you, that’s only one of many facets of conflict between nations and who wins and who gets murdered or sent to concentration camps.
Colour me shocked
I often wonder how long people like this should be sentenced for. Will 4 years be long enough to make him think he better have a big lifestyle change to avoid more prison time, or will he come out even more radicalised?
To be honest, when you are talking about dangerous radicals it’s a bit difficult…because when does spreading radical ideologies of hatred move from freedom of expression to a crime which endangers our society…some joining and supporting Islamic state ( an organisation that would want to destroy and replace our nation) is relatively easy…but then you get someone like Andrew Tate…a misogynistic right wing monster who is creating toxic hatred for women in our young men ( as a parent or teenage girls and boys I’ve seen the effects first hand)..someone more destructive to our society than they guy who got 11 years…how many years do you put Tate away for for the sake of our nation ? Very difficult.