Woman in Britain jailed for distributing extremist material on Facebook

LONDON (Reuters) - A mother of six from Luton, north of London, was jailed for five years and three months on Thursday after admitting four counts of distributing terrorist publications via Facebook. Kingston Crown Court heard that in 2013 Runa Khan, 35, had posted an image of a suicide vest emblazoned with the words "... sacrificing your life to benefit Islam." Another count related to her passing on details about how to travel from Turkey to Syria for the purposes of joining the conflict there to another online user. A third involved another post where Khan reposted on Facebook a lengthy article entitled "Sisters' Role in Jihad Off the Battlefield." Commander Richard Walton, Head of the Metropolitan Police's SO15 Counter Terrorism Command said in a statement: "This is a case of social media being used as a tool for terrorism. Khan used it spread extremism, radicalize others and justify children being used for terrorism." He added: "We aim to make the internet a more hostile environment for terrorists; today's sentence supports that aim." (Reporting by Stephen Addison; editing by Sarah Young)