A teacher caught with an IS video in the UK faces jail after allegedly teaching jihad to children
Windsor: So, there’s this story about a 20-year-old Islamic Sunday school teacher named Dzhamilya Timaeva. She got asylum in the UK but was caught with a video from the Islamic State. The court heard she was allegedly giving kids lessons about jihad, which is pretty alarming.
She was arrested at Heathrow while trying to fly to Turkey back in October 2022. The video she had was called “Incite the believers,” and it basically encourages people to commit arson if they can’t get their hands on weapons. When the police showed her the video, she claimed it was her first time seeing it.
But here’s the kicker: when they arrested her again in March 2023, they found a voice note on her phone where she bragged about lying to the police. Not a great look, right?
In December, she was convicted for having that terrorist document but was cleared of other charges related to distributing extremist materials, including a cartoon book for kids. The judge has now allowed her conviction to be reported, and she’s set to be sentenced soon.
Timaeva and her family came to the UK as refugees from Chechnya in 2013 after being denied asylum in other countries. They lived in Cardiff for a while before moving to Windsor, where they still reside. She even memorized the Koran at just 12 years old, saying Islam is a big part of her life.
But it gets crazier. She had over 5,000 videos on her phone, many promoting violence against non-believers. She was the head teacher at a local Muslim association and was about to start teaching at a Sunday school. She even created lesson plans and printed books for kids that pushed some pretty extreme ideas.
One of those books told kids they had a “duty” to wage war for Islam. It’s wild to think about what she was trying to teach them. She claimed a lot of the videos just downloaded automatically when she joined certain groups on Telegram, but it raises a lot of questions about what she was really up to.
When asked about some of the more extreme content on her phone, she said she didn’t remember downloading it. She used Telegram to keep in touch with friends and follow Islamic channels, but it’s hard to ignore the serious implications of her actions.
