Teen who 'gave Jihad lessons' bragged about lying to cops, court told

A Sunday school teacher, who is accused of giving children lessons in Jihad, bragged to her friends about lying to police about terrorist videos, a court heard. 

Dzhamilya Timaeva, 19, was caught with a video called 'Incite The Believers' on her phone when she was arrested at Heathrow Airport, shortly before boarding a flight to Turkey in October 2022. 

The footage encourages viewers to carry out arson attacks against buildings, forests, and agricultural land in the West, if they do not have a gun or a knife. 

The Old Bailey previously heard that Timaeva was the head teacher at the Windsor Muslim Association and was due to begin teaching classes at the Tawheed Islamic Education Centre, a Sunday school in Maidenhead.

She devised lesson plans and a curriculum for the children attending the Tawheed school. 

Despite telling police it was the 'first time' she watched the extremist video, it was later uncovered that she laughed in a voice note to friends detailing her lies to officers, the court was told.

When the 19-year-old was rearrested in March 2023, police found she bragged to friends about her lies.

In the voice note, she said: 'They were going through this sheet of why I was arrested and I was thinking this is nothing this is light work, like you guys have nothing on me.

'I'm sitting there like I'm chilling like I'm not even worried I'm not even scared - nothing! Like I'm so calm.

'And then after the video started on a tutorial on how to make explosives etc etc (giggle) and I had saved it on my phone.

'I forgot because I didn't even watch the whole video.'

She added: 'I like the start because it was a nicely edited video. I'm trying not to laugh because guys this one is not like me.'

Prosecutor Gareth Weetman said Timaeva 'wasn't being truthful about not having watched the video.'

'She was not simply a devout Muslim but someone who believed that it was her duty to wage war against non-believers and instil that sense of duty in others,' he said.

On the day after her home in Windsor was searched in 2023 a teacher at her school found her alone trying to hide shredded paper in a cupboard, jurors heard.

The strips were reconstructed and found to relate to Jihad with topics such as 'Constants on the path of Jihad' and 'Democracy: The modern idol.'

Timaeva largely gave no comment to police questions but said the 'Windsor Muslim Association' listing of her as head teacher was 'incorrect.'

She denied recognising the address for the school on the website and said she had never been there.

Timaeva agreed that she 'taught the Quran to children.'

The court also heard she had printed seventy picture books for children called ‘Little Muwahideen’ - a term used by believers of Islam, who think Allah above all else should be worshipped 

Within the pages reference was made to the ‘duty’ of ‘waging of war for Islam’, the Old Bailey was told. 

Timaeva, who is on bail, denies disseminating terrorist documents and possessing a document for terrorist purposes between October 2022 and February 2023.

The trial continues.