HMM. AFTER THE BREXIT VOTE. “The public can [now] be told of [Choudary’s] conviction for encouraging support for Isis.”

For years Anjem Choudary deflected claims that his words and actions were designed to push his followers into terrorism by claiming he believed in a “covenant of security”; that meant because Britain gave a home to Muslims, it should not be the target of violent jihad.

But the fact is that again and again, people connected to him and his Islamist groups became involved in terrorism. The sheer weight of that pattern, involving 100 people in Britain alone, points to this being not a coincidence but a deliberate aim.

The lifting of legal restrictions on Tuesday means the public can be told of his conviction for encouraging support for Islamic State. Choudary and his co-defendant, Mohammed Rahman, 33, were convicted in July but details of the trial, including the verdict, could not be reported until now. It comes after years of widespread bafflement as to how he avoided going to jail for terrorism offences.

The view that Choudary played a pernicious role in funneling people towards terrorism has remarkable levels of agreement across the political and religious spectrum. . . .

By 2005 at the latest, the authorities in the UK had information showing al-Muhajiroun’s willingness to support jihad, according to documents seen by the Guardian.

Sounds like someone protected him for quite a while, for some reason or another.