British teenage extremist jailed over encouraging terrorism

By Burak Bir

LONDON (AA) – A British teenage extremist has been sentenced to 11-and-a-half years in prison after his far-right videos were linked to two mass murders in the US, media reports said on Friday.

Daniel Harris, 19, from Glossop, Derbyshire used World Truth Videos, an online platform, to disseminate a "call to arms" for his violent racist beliefs, a court heard, as Sky News reported.

After a trial at Manchester Crown Court, Harris was convicted on five counts of encouraging terrorism and one of possessing a 3D printer for the purposes of terrorism.

He was sentenced to 11-and-a-half years in jail, and a further three years on license, the report added.

Prosecutors said US mass killer Payton Gendron, who murdered 10 Black people last year in New York, was "encouraged and, in part, motivated to do what he did" by Harris.

Gendron, 19, had left a comment on one of Harris' videos two months before the mass shooting, saying: "You are not alone my friend :)"

Additionally, the extremist teenager reportedly influenced Anderson Lee Aldrich, the only suspect in a shooting at a Colorado bar that left four people dead last year.