Muslim cleric Anjem Choudary | Leon Neal/AFP via Getty Images Hate preacher Anjem Choudary jailed ISIL spokesman jailed for more than five years.

Anjem Choudary, a British-based radical preacher and supporter of Islamic State, was jailed for five years and six months on Tuesday.

Choudary, 49, was sentenced at the Old Bailey in London following his July conviction over a series of YouTube videos urging Muslims to join ISIL.

The London-based preacher, who was arrested along with his acolyte, Mohammed Rahman, had been a vocal proponent of ISIL and its founder, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, urging his supporters to travel to Syria in order to support "the caliphate."

Preaching his hateful message for the past two decades, Choudary had managed to avoid serious criminal charges in the U.K, until now. The unanimous conviction by jury arrived after an investigation by Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism unit.

Speeches endorsing ISIL were uploaded to Choudary's YouTube channel between August and September 2014. One of the videos played for jurors featured resounding endorsement for the group. “The lesson from this narration is that obedience to the caliph is an obligation, if they rule by the sharia. And to obey them obviously means they must be established,” Choudary said.

Choudary's lawyer said that his client's endorsement of the extremist group represented an intellectual plea, not a direct incitement to violence.

Sentencing Choudary and Rahman to five years and six months each, the judge said: “I regard each of you as dangerous. You show no remorse at all for anything you have said or done and I have no doubt you will continue to communicate your message whenever you can.”