Former UK boxing champ charged with encouraging extremism

Published Jan. 18, 2018 6:08 p.m. ET

LONDON (AP) A former British boxing champion has been charged with encouraging extremist violence.

Police said Thursday that 36-year-old Anthony Small has been charged with encouraging acts of terrorism.

They say the London native, a convert to Islam, posted a video on social media in 2016 that violated terrorism laws.

Small is scheduled to appear in Westminster Magistrates Court on Wednesday.

The former professional boxer, who adopted Sugar Ray Clay Jones Jr. as a nickname for a time, won the British and Commonwealth light middleweight titles in 2009. He is now known as Abdul Haqq.

British officials previously accused Small of supporting the Islamic State group. A jury found him not guilty of plotting to fight with the extremist group in Syria in 2015.