British rappers jailed for YouTube song threat

LONDON (Reuters) - Two British rappers were jailed on Friday for threatening potential witnesses to a murder in a song they posted on YouTube.

The rap song, featuring a burst of gunfire, warned that people who talked to the police about a murder in west London last year could be killed.

The song was placed on the YouTube video website with links to MySpace and Facebook profiles as a message to people in the local community, prosecutors said.

The lyrics meant that "those who went chitter-chattering to police were themselves in danger of being shot", Judge Richard Hone told London's Old Bailey court.

Ishmael McLean, 22, and Rowan Simon, 18, were found guilty last month of trying to pervert the course of justice, the Press Association reported.

McLean was jailed for five years on Friday, including a year for having three bullets hidden in a shoebox, while Simon was imprisoned for two-and-a-half years.

Eight people, including the two men, were arrested following the murder of Jason Johnson, 24, last November but were not charged over his killing. However, prosecutors said two of the rappers' friends had been held in custody while the others had been bailed following the shooting.

"Rather than wait for the police to conclude their inquiries they decided to take matters into their own hands," prosecutor Oliver Glasgow said. "They wrote, recorded and released onto YouTube a rap music video in which they spoke of their hatred for the people who had spoken to the police.

"They made it clear exactly what it was they wanted to do to them. Namely, kill them or to use their own words 'I can't wait for the snitch to drop, I still show up at his wake just to see him off'."

McLean told officers he wrote the lyrics to "Wrong Team" but claimed it was only a gangster rap. "Its connection to this case and its chilling message were immediately obvious to the officers," Glasgow said.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; editing by David Stamp)