A pharmacist who claimed Islamic State were ‘not bad people’ was today convicted of showing a beheading video to two young children.
Zameer Ghumra, 38, ‘brainwashed’ two primary school-age youngsters, instructing them to not have non-Muslim friends.
He also asked the children if they wanted to join the terrorist group or help recruit others to its ranks.
Ghumra, of Leicester, also taught the boys how to throw butter knives and how to shoot using Nerf guns, the court heard.
Zameer Ghumra, 38, (pictured) ‘brainwashed’ two primary school-age youngsters, instructing them to not have non-Muslim friends
He now faces jail after he showed the two primary school children the horrific clip and told them to kill people who spoke out against Islam.
Ghumra was today found guilty by the jury of eight men and four women at Nottingham Crown Court.
He was convicted of disseminating ‘terrorist propaganda’ in the form of a graphic Twitter video on his mobile phone between January 2013 and September 2014.
Both boys told the court that Ghumra had urged them to encourage other people to go to Syria and fight for the terror group. Neither of the boys can be identified for legal reasons.
The first boy said in his evidence: ‘He had Isis training videos and people being beheaded.
‘There was talking and then the American soldier was beheaded. It made me feel disgusting. He said if you truly love Allah then you do it.
‘I told him I get a horrid feeling when I see this.’
The boy claimed he and his brother had been shown ‘a lot’ of beheading videos by Ghumra, who ran a small madrassa for pupils of Islam.
The boy said: ‘He believes in a very, very, very extreme Islam. He believes if anyone’s non-Muslim and they say anything bad about Islam you kill them.
‘And you can’t make friends with any non-Muslim.’
‘He was teaching us about knives. He was teaching us to thrown knives and how to punch and kick. He already knew somehow and he taught us.
‘We used to use butter knives. You have to hold it in a specific way and throw it in a specific way.’
The second boy told the court how Ghumra had ‘brainwashed’ him. He said: ‘He used to make us like him and get us into joining Isis.
‘Every time we started to stop liking him he used to buy us sweets or something to make us like him again. He used to keep on doing that.
‘He said that Isis are good and he used to get us Nerf guns and trying to teach us how to survive in a situation like Isis.
Pharmacist Zameer Ghumra was today convicted of showing a beheading video to two young children
‘He said that if you don’t follow the rules of Islam you go to hell. There was five or six pillars of Islam. You have to pray, you have to not drink alcohol and other stuff like that and other stuff he made up.’
Another witness told the court that Ghurma banned him from the pharmacy where he worked as a manager in Oundle, Northamptonshire, after he had urged him to have a poppy tin on display.
The witness said: ‘He said words to the effect of ‘you’ve got blood on your hands’. He told me I was barred and to get out.
‘It wasn’t his pharmacy. He was just the manager.’
Ghurma denied disseminating ‘terrorist propaganda’ in the form of a graphic Twitter video on his mobile phone between January 2013 and September 2014.
Prosecutor Simon Davis told jurors: ‘The behaviour at the heart of this case relates to the defendant showing a terrorist publication to one of the children.
‘We say what the defendant was doing, saying and telling the children to do, amounted to indoctrination, radicalisation, or whatever word you want to use, at an early age.’
‘He showed them Islamic State training videos, that included how to behead somebody.’
When asked by one child how anyone could do something so ‘disgusting’, Ghumra replied: ‘If you truly believe in Allah, you can do it.’
In March 2015 Ghumra started talking to a pharmacy customer about ISIS, saying ‘they’re not bad people – they’re only defending themselves.’
He told another person: ‘If Islamic State is the truth, then I agree with the truth.’
Ghumra was today found guilty by the jury of eight men and four women at Nottingham Crown Court (pictured)
Mr Davis added: ‘It was apparent the defendant had been brainwashing the children to the extent that anything non-Muslim was haram (forbidden).’
The court heard that Ghumra had tweeted his followers: ‘Hitler was on the right track. They shouldn’t have stopped him’.
Ghumra, of Leicester, also tweeted that ISIS would take over Britain and Buckingham Palace could become a ‘great mosque’.
He tweeted: ‘The Muslim flag will fly over Downing Street and Buckingham Palace will make a great mosque.’
He also tweeted how people will be happy to pay less tax once Britain becomes a part of the ‘Islamic caliphate’.
Ghumra, was arrested on November 2, 2015, at Birmingham Airport as he tried to fly to Istanbul in Turkey. He told the jury he had considered going to Syria to support Isis but had decided against it.
Asked about a tweet he wrote in which he enquired about going to Syria to ‘work/fight’ he said he only wanted to work as a pharmacist but knew he might have to fight.
When asked about the flight to Istanbul he said he had planned to spend four nights in Turkey and then travel on to Bodram, Turkey, where his family had a house, and then go to Dubai before returning to England.
Ghumra says he initially believed Isis was working to end the violence in Syria and that it was fighting for oppressed people against the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
He said: ‘I realised Isis was starting to make their own violence. As soon as I realised that I parted ways.
‘I was anti-violence then and I’m anti-violence now.’
Ghurma was remanded into custody and will be sentence tomorrow.