Tri-Service

Remembrance Sunday Attack Plotter Jailed

A British man has been jailed for life for plotting to carry out an attack inspired by the killers of Fusilier Lee Rigby.

23-year-old Nadir Syed will serve a minimum of 15 years after being found guilty of planning the Daesh-inspired attack.

It’s believed Syed intended to target a poppy seller when he bought a large kitchen knife before he was arrested shortly before Armistice Day in 2014.

During the trial, the court heard Syed went with another man to buy a foot-long knife in the run-up to Remembrance Sunday.

The judge said it was specifically chosen to decapitate a victim.

Sentencing him at the Old Bailey to a minimum of 15 years, Mr Justice Saunders said:

"I am satisfied like the killers of Fusilier Rigby, Nadir Syed followed the precept of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”

"In my judgment if he was released from prison he would go and try to carry out what he failed to achieve in this case - he would set out to kill in furtherance of his beliefs."

Syed had tried to reach Syria to fight alongside his cousin, Yousaf Syed, but he failed to reach the country.

The prosecution argued that Syed became obsessed with the 2013 murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby, describing one of the killers as a "diamond geezer" after becoming committed to carrying out a violent act in the UK.

The Judge said he would remain behind bars until he is safe to return to the community adding that he would “remain dangerous until the threat from Islamic terrorists has gone."

Syed's cousin, Yousaf Syed, 20, and Haseeb Hamayoon, 29, were acquitted of planning terrorist acts following a retrial.