Racist Teen Jailed Over Terroristic Messages About Meghan Markle and Prince Harry

A U.K. teenager was sentenced to more than four years in prison Tuesday after calling Prince Harry a "race traitor" after his marriage to Meghan Markle last year.

Miceal Szewczuk, a 19-year-old university student from Bramley, Leeds, was sentenced to four years and three months in a young offenders institution, reports the Press Association. He pleaded guilty to two counts of encouraging terrorism and five counts of possession of terrorist material. Prosecutors said he was found to have the White Resistance Manual and an al-Qaida training manual in his possession.

Szewczuk's charges stem from an image he created showing Harry with a pistol to his head, and blood covering the background. The image also included a swastika and was distributed on a far-right social media site in August 2018. "See ya later race traitor," read the caption to the image.

Szewczuk also wrote a blog, with posts described as "extremely violent and aggressively misogynistic."

"The posts I have seen and read are abhorrent as well as criminal by reason of their clear intention to encourage terrorist acts," Judge Rebecca Poulet QC said Tuesday. "Individuals were urged to go out and commit appalling acts of violence on others for no reason that can ever be understood by any right-thinking individuals."

Oskar Dunn-Koczorowski, 18, was sentenced alongside Szewczuk for two counts of encouraging terrorism.

"You still hold deeply entrenched views in support of this extreme right-wing ideology," Poulet told Dunn-Koczorowski.

Both teenagers, who only met through online communication, were arrested in December. The initial post was published on Gab, a controversial social network often used by the far-right.

Since Harry married Markle, who is the first member of the Royal Family to be of mixed-race, there have been troubling cases of racism directed at her. In May, BBC radio host Danny Baker was fired after he published a tweet showing a chimpanzee dressed in clothes with the caption "Royal Baby leaves the hospital," just moments after the couple welcomed their first child.

Actress Priyanka Chopra, a close friend of Markle's, recently suggested racism was behind the criticism Markle has faced since joining the family.

"The beauty of Meg is that she's been herself through all of this. A lot of people got to know her after everything, but I knew her before [she started dating Harry] and she's the same chick," Chopra told The Sunday Times earlier this month. "Now she's got a real platform, she talks about the same things she always did."

Photo credit: Getty Images