Four British Muslims 'plotted to kill police officer or soldier in London'

Encouragement: IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghadi
AFP/Getty Images
Paul Cheston18 January 2016
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Four British Muslims plotted to kill a police officer, soldier or civilian in Islamic State-inspired terror attacks in London, the Old Bailey heard today.

The alleged plot is said to have been sparked by the war in Syria and Iraq, and encouraged by IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The targets — Shepherd’s Bush police station and 4 Parachute Regiment Territorial Army barracks at White City — were researched on Google Street View, the jury heard. One plotter pledged allegiance to IS just months before police moved in to arrest the group, the court was told, and weeks earlier IS had issued a fatwa inciting Muslims in the West to kill non-believers.

Tarik Hassane, 22; Suhaib Majeed, 21; Nyall Hamlett, 25; and Nathan Cuffy, 26, all from west London, plead not guilty to conspiracy to murder. They also deny preparing acts of terrorism between July and October 2014, and Cuffy and Majeed deny firearms charges.

Brian Altman QC, prosecuting, said: “It was a plot (for) one or more assassinations either involving a drive-by shooting or a shooting on foot and then a speedy escape by moped.”

The court heard that “although the finer details of the plot may not have been worked out and finally agreed,” the defendants had acquired weapons, including a self-loading pistol, a magazine with ammunition and a silencer.

Cuffy denies passing a pistol to Hassane and possessing weapons and ammunition, and Majeed denies possessing a self-loading pistol.

Opening the trial Mr Altman said all four were “British citizens and resident in this country and are Muslim ... With their arrests the police successfully disrupted a plot to kill a police officer, a soldier or possibly even a civilian.

“If the plot had been allowed to run its course they would have resulted in a terrorist murder or murders on the streets of London, according to the warped ideology of the defendants in the cause and for the sake of Allah.

“The plot was undoubtedly influenced by the happenings in Syria and Iraq and the rise of IS.”

He recounted how in June 2014, IS pronounced itself to be a worldwide caliphate led by al-Baghdadi. “It was to IS that Hassane pledged his allegiance in July 2014,” said Mr Altman.

“Although the plot had been afoot for some time it received important direct and authoritative encouragement from IS itself two months later.” This allegedly came in a 42-minute YouTube speech entitled Indeed Your Lord Is Ever Watchful.

“It was the first fatwa issued by IS to its supporters to kill disbelievers in the West,” said the prosecutor. “This was nothing short of direct encouragement and incitement to Muslims living in the West to go out and kill non-believers in their home nations.”

The group were arrested in autumn 2014. Hassane targeted the Shepherd’s Bush police station and Parachute Regiment barracks at White City, and when he was seized police found he had made searches on Street View, the jury heard. Because he had been away studying in Sudan, he was arrested on his return to London after the other suspects had been held.

In the absence of his co-defendants “he quite clearly intended to progress the plan as a lone wolf terrorist to further IS’s reach into the capital city of this country”, Mr Altman said.

Hassane and King’s College, London student Majeed were close friends and at the heart of the terror plot, the court heard, while Cuffy was the armourer and on his arrest police found “a weapons store” of four guns and ammunition in his bedroom.

Mr Altman said the fatwa that inspired the plot ordered its followers to “strike the soldiers, patrons and troops of the tawaghit (tyrants). Strike their police, security and intelligence members as well as their treacherous agents.”

The four defendants “discussed the speech and made explicit references to aspects of it,” it is claimed.

The group rejected a suicide attack possibly because this would enable them to carry out more killings. The case continues.

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