Edinburgh-based Algerian man jailed for posting messages backing Islamic State on Facebook
An Algerian man who posted messages in support of Islamic State (IS) on social media sites has been jailed for two years.
Mourad Mosdefaoui, 34, who entered the UK seven years ago and had been living in Edinburgh, put three posts on Facebook from September 2014 to March 2015 celebrating the group and their terrorist acts.
One showed a photograph of him holding a notepad with Arabic text, translated as: The Islamic State will remain and expand God willing.''
In another, he wrote he was troubled to be living in a country of blasphemy'' and appeared to suggest he would be willing to fight in Iraq and Syria.
More than 11,000 images were later found on a mobile phone in his possession, a number of which showed imagery and propaganda associated with IS. One of the pictures appeared to show a beheading carried out by the man who was known as Jihadi John''.
A search of Mosdefaoui's Edinburgh flat this summer also uncovered a forged Belgian identity card, which he said he owned to find work in the UK.
Mosdefaoui admitted posting the messages at a hearing at Edinburgh Sheriff Court last month, where he pleaded guilty to two charges under the Terrorism Act 2006 and the 2010 Identity Documents Act.
Sheriff Frank Crowe jailed him for a total of two years when he returned to court for sentencing on Wednesday.