Teenager jailed for planning Woolwich-style attack

A 19 year old , who was radicalised within weeks, has been jailed for 22 years for planning a “Woolwich” style attack on an army cadet.

Brusthom Ziamani was arrested last summer in east London, with a rucksack containing a 12” knife, a hammer and a jihadi flag.

He was on his way, the court was told, to carry out an act of “horrifying savagery”  by decapitating a member of the armed forces and put the severed head on display.

Ziamani was brought up a strict Jehovah’s Witness who on converting to Islam, was thrown out of home by his devoutly Christian parents. He adopted extremist views after attending a number of meetings and demonstrations organised by the outlawed Al Muhajiroun organisation.

The teenager rejected several attempts by police officers working on the Prevent programme to divert him from the path of radicalisation.

Ziamani wrote letters, which the judge described as fanatical diatribes, expressing his anger at what was happening in Syria and Iraq, his desire to die a martyr and included plans to wage war against the British government.

Sentencing the teenager, Judge Timothy Pontius, told him he’d become “totally absorbed in a twisted interpretation of Islam which is now the hallmark of the fanatical terrorist”, and determined to imitate the killers of Fusilier Lee Rigby, Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, “whose crime this defendant had so explicitly and repeatedly applauded”.

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