Refugee planned to join ISIS after UK radicalisation

A former Peshmerga fighter radicalised in Britain after fleeing Iraq planned to return to the country to fight for the Islamic State terror group, a court hasheard.

Shivan Azeez Zangana, 21, who uses the surname Azeez, was sent to the UK by his family to keep him safe after battling Islamic extremists with the Kurdish separatist group.

But after falling in with "a nest of rats" here, he was turned by a fellowKurd, asylum-seeker Aras Hamid, 27, and agreed to change sides and go with him to fight for IS, Kingston Crown Court in London was told.

They were discovered by police sleeping at the Al Noor Mosque in Birmingham on May 17, days after several of Azeez's worried relatives called 999 with concerns about what he was planning.

Azeez, who had fled from his home in Sheffield and bought a ticket for a flight from Gatwick to Iraq, was arrested but plan ringleader Hamid was released.He was discovered two days later hiding in a lorry on the A2 near Dover, Kent, while trying to smuggle himself out the UK using a Bulgarian passport.Hamid, who entered the UK illegally, had arranged to travel to the war zone to fight for a Kurdish IS unit, the Salahaddin Battalion.

Giving evidence in their trial last year, he admitted he wanted to die amartyr's death.Azeez's lawyer, Anthony Barraclough, told Tuesday's sentencing hearing:

Naeem Miah, for Hamid, denied that he had radicalised Azeez, saying:

Hamid, of no fixed address, and Azeez, of Washington Road in Sheffield, were both convicted of preparing acts of terrorism at a trial last year, while Hamid was also found guilty of assisting another in commission of terrorist acts.

A third man, Ahmed Ismail, 19, of Portwrinkle Avenue, Coventry, was convicted of failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism.Prosecutors alleged that the British citizen or Kurdish origin decided not totravel with the others because he feared his brother Mohammed, an IS fighter, was in a "precarious position" because he was suspected of being a spy.