4 days ago
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A man who threatened on TikTok to kill the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, has been jailed for five years.
Fayaz Khan, an Afghan national whose real name is believed to be Fayaz Husseini, made the threat last October in a video that Farage and a high court judge described as “pretty chilling”.
Farage said he was “happy with the win” after the sentencing hearing at Southwark crown court on Tuesday but said he was “deeply, deeply concerned” Khan would be freed in 18 months.
The politician attended the sentencing hearing with security guards and sat in front of reporters.
Khan shouted at Farage as he was taken down to the cells after the hearing, accusing him of wanting to “use me because you want to be prime minister”.
He was found guilty after a trial last week of making threats to kill, after previously pleading guilty to attempting to enter the UK illegally.
Jurors were previously told that on 12 October last year, Farage uploaded a video to YouTube titled “the journey of an illegal migrant”, which highlighted Khan and referenced “young males of fighting age coming into our country about whom we know very little”.
The prosecutor, Peter Ratliff, said Khan responded with a video two days later, which was played to the jury, in which he said: “Englishman Nigel, don’t talk shit about me.
“You not know me. I come to England because I want to marry with your sister. You not know me.
“Don’t talk about me more. Delete the video. I’m coming to England. I’m going to pop, pop, pop.”
Ratliff previously told the court that while Khan said “pop, pop, pop” he made “gun gestures with his hand”, as well as head-butting the camera during the video, and was pointing to an AK-47 tattoo on his face to “emphasise he wasn’t joking”.
Jurors were told Khan had a “very large presence online” with his videos on TikTok, under the username “madapasa”, attracting hundreds of thousands of views.
The court heard that Khan had given British police the name Fayaz Khan and his age as 26 but that Swedish authorities believed he was called Fayaz Husseini and was 31.
He told British authorities he had given a different name because he had “enemies he did not want to find him”.
The judge ruled that his reasons for giving a false name were because he had a “criminal record in Sweden” and an outstanding six-month prison sentence in Sweden.
His defence barrister, Charles Royle, told the court Khan had asked him to apologise to Farage on his behalf “for any offence and upset caused”.
The court was told that Khan claims his father was an associate of the former Afghan president Hamid Karzai, and that Khan worked for his father, putting him at risk from the Taliban.
