A 20-year-old British-Bangladeshi Islamic State fanatic plotted to kill Prime Minister Theresa May in a daring suicide attack at her Downing Street office here, a UK court was told today.<\/p>\n
Rahman planned to detonate an explosion at the security gates of Number 10 Downing Street before stabbing the Prime Minister, it is alleged.<\/p>\n
On the opening day of his trial, the jury was told how Rahman was snared in September last year, during a chat on a messaging app with an MI5 operative, who was pretending to be a man called Amir in Syria. The MI5 is UK\u2019s domestic counter-intelligence and security agency.<\/p>\n
The trial at London\u2019s Old Bailey was also told that Rahman believed he was \u201cjust days away\u201d from the attack before he was arrested in November last year.<\/p>\n
Rahman is charged with preparing terrorist acts by conducting reconnaissance, recording a pledge of allegiance, and delivering a rucksack and jacket to be fitted with explosives.<\/p>\n
He is also charged with helping a second defendant, Mohammad Aqib Imran, 22, to join IS in Syria by recording a sponsorship video. Rahman denies both counts, the BBC reported.<\/p>\n
Imran, has pleaded not guilty to preparing terrorist acts and possessing a document on his Kindle entitled How To Survive In The West \u2013 A Mujahid\u2019s Guide 2015. Imran\u2019s nationality was not provided.<\/p>\n
The court heard how Rahman told the agent that he was being investigated because of his uncle. Rahman\u2019s uncle joined the Islamic State terror group in Syria and encouraged his nephew to attack Britain before being killed in a drone strike in Syria, the prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
Jurors were told that Rahman, when asked for more information in the Telegram chat, told the agent: \u201cI want to do a suicide bomb on Parliament. I want to attempt to kill Theresa May.\u201d<\/p>\n
In another exchange, Rahman allegedly said: \u201cMy objective is to take out my target. Nothing less than the death of the leaders of Parliament.\u201d<\/p>\n
The court heard how he also praised the Manchester Arena bomber and said he had thought about wearing \u201ca vest\u201d while driving past Parliament before \u201cpushing the button\u201d to \u201cclear the entire block\u201d.<\/p>\n
Rahman allegedly added: \u201cEveryone inside, including the Prime Minister, would be dead.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prosecutor Mark Heywood told the court: \u201cHis settled conclusion was that lethal violence here, directed at the very heart of the United Kingdom government, was the only effective way to pursue his intentions.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore his arrest prevented it, he was, he believed, just days away from his objective, which was no less than a suicide attack, by blade and explosion, on Downing Street and, if he could, upon the Prime Minister Theresa May herself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A 20-year-old British-Bangladeshi Islamic State fanatic plotted to kill Prime Minister Theresa May in a daring suicide attack at her Downing Street office here, a UK court was told today. Rahman planned to detonate an explosion at the security gates of Number 10 Downing Street before stabbing the Prime Minister, it is alleged. On the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34709,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34708"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34710,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34708\/revisions\/34710"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}