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Birmingham couple who plotted terrorist knife attack are jailed Birmingham couple who plotted terrorist knife attack are jailed
(about 3 hours later)
A couple who used a lifelike dummy and a combat knife to plot a UK terrorist attack have been jailed. A married couple from Birmingham who practiced carrying out Isis-inspired knife attacks on a dummy in their home have been jailed for preparing acts of terrorism.
Madihah Taheer, 22, encouraged her husband, Ummar Mirza, by telling him before they were married: “I want you to kill ppl for me. I have a list.” Ummar Mirza, 21, was sentenced at Woolwich crown court to 16 years in prison in London on Wednesday for preparing acts of terrorism in the UK.Madihah Taheer, 22, was jailed for 10 years after purchasing a combat knife for her husband.
In messages to each other, Mirza, 21, said he wanted to stab someone 27 times, to which Taheer replied that it “sounds so satisfying”. The pair had long discussed carrying out an attack, exchanging messages before they were married in September 2015 in which Taheer wrote: “Can we get married already ffs. I want you to kill ppl for me. I have a list.”
Mirza admitted one count of preparing terrorist acts between January and March this year. Mirza replied: “The day of the nikkah (marriage) I’ll kill em all. Give me the list. The only thing that stops me is we are not married. I will defo ... I’m not joking.”
Two counts of possessing information useful to a terrorist were left on file at Woolwich crown court. Taheer who has recently become a mother, was convicted of preparing an act of terror in October this year, while her husband pleaded guilty to the charge at an earlier hearing.
Sentencing him to 16 years in jail with an extended licence period of five years, Judge Christopher Kinch QC said: “You had moved a long way down the road of preparation of a terrorist act of the lone wolf type.” When police raided the couple’s home in Birmingham, they found a life-like training dummy with slash marks across its forehead, throat and abdomen.
Taheer denied any involvement but was found guilty of the preparation of terrorist acts between 12 February and 30 March this year, through buying the knife. She was jailed for 10 years with an extended period of one year. Prior to his arrest, Mirza had carried out a number of internet searches on the best knife to buy, how to commit the “perfect murder”, and how to kill someone with a knife.
Also sentenced was Zainub Mirza, Mirza’s sister, who shared Islamic State propaganda with the couple on social media. The 24-year-old, of Eastfield Road, Birmingham, earlier pleaded guilty to five counts of disseminating terrorist publications, which she had sent to her brother between 10 and 23 January this year. She was sentenced to 30 months’ imprisonment. After acquiring a combat knife, purchased by his wife, Mirza researched targets including Jewish areas in London and Birmingham, and barracks and Territorial Army bases in Birmingham.
Among the messages between the couple were several sent in September 2015, before their marriage in April 2016, in which Taheer told Mirza: “Can we get married already ffs. I want you to kill for me. I have a list.” Two days before Mirza was arrested he had also been searching reports about a Birmingham flat being linked to the Westminster terror attack, and on the Westminster attacker Khalid Masood.
Mirza replied: “The day of the nikkah [marriage] I’ll kill em all. Give me the list. The only thing that stops me is we are not married. I will defo I’m not joking.” Messages between the couple produced in court showed them discussing the purchase of a training dummy, with Mirza preferring a neoprene model over a plastic one.
When police searched the couple’s home in Birmingham, they found the training dummy with slash marks across the forehead, throat and abdomen. One message from him to Taheer said: “I know the difference in feeling. (The) same way I like hitting you. It is fun. It feels nice to hit, so to feel flesh contort under the force.”
The Crown Prosecution Service said the conversations showed Taheer was a “willing accomplice” who knew what Mirza wanted to use the knife for. Sentencing Mirza, Judge Christopher Kinch QC said he had shown “inexorable progress” towards a lone-wolf attack, adding the 21-year-old had “moved from speculative ideas to sourcing equipment, to training and searching for possible targets”.
The prosecutor John McGuinness QC said: “The evidence shows that these two defendants held a shared belief in violent pro-jihad, Islamic State extremism. “The harm which might have been caused is undoubtedly high,” Kinch said. “I am satisfied having regard to all the material I have read that you pose a significant risk of serious harm being caused to members of the public from the commission of further specified offences.”
“They show evidence of supporting the Islamic State, its methods, beliefs and aims.” Speaking about Taheer’s case, Kinch described it as a “personal tragedy” because the October trial came when her first child was just five months old.
During the trial, the Crown Prosecution Service had argued the conversations between the couple showed that Taheer was a “willing accomplice” who knew what Mirza wanted to use the knife for, illustrating “a shared belief in violent pro-jihad, Islamic State extremism”.
Also sentenced on Wednesday was Zainub Mirza, Mirza’s sister, who shared Isis propaganda with the couple on social media.
The 24-year-old was sentenced to 30 months in prison, having already pleaded guilty to five counts of disseminating terrorist publications.
The court heard that Mirza’s sister sent him videos relating to extremism, including some showing Isis fighters beheading hostages.
In one message, she said to her brother: “May Allah give us the ability to raise our children to fight for Allah.”
Speaking after the conviction of Taheer in October, Det Ch Supt Matt Ward, the head of West Midlands counter-terrorism unit, said: “Earlier this year we received information that they were planning to carry out a terrorist act in the UK.
“We were able to establish that they were in advanced stages of preparation. We think that they had radical extreme views for some time – back to 2015. This year they have accelerated that extremism. They had purchased a training knife to carry out a practice of the attack.
“They then bought a large hunting knife that you conceal in clothing in order to carry out an attack. We had two guilty pleas and a guilty verdict because they were sharing extremely vile and disturbing extremist material.
“We are confident that, had we not intervened when we did, they would have carried out an attack.”