Lee Rigby trial: accused's claim to be a soldier of Allah 'no defence for murder'

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/dec/17/lee-rigby-trial-accused-no-defence

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A man who hacked fusilier Lee Rigby to death in the street claiming to be a "soldier of Allah" has no defence in law to the charge of murder, the Old Bailey has heard.

The judge, Mr Justice Sweeney, told jurors that Michael Adebolajo, 28, has offered no defence in law to the charge that he murdered Rigby outside Woolwich military barracks on 22 May.

Adebolajo admitted killing Rigby but said it was not murder because he was acting as a soldier of Allah who must "fight those militaries that attack the Muslims". Adebolajo and his co-accused, Michael Adebowale, 22, deny murder.

Sweeney told the jury: "I have ruled that nothing he [Adebolajo] said in evidence, such as he was a soldier of Allah, amounts in law to a defence to this count."

The jury was told by the prosecutor, Richard Whittam QC, that the killing of Rigby was "indefensible in the law of this country" and done to wreak "carnage" on the streets of Britain.

But he added: "It's important that I make it clear – Islam, one of the world's great religions, is not on trial, nor could it be."

In his closing speech, Whittam told jurors that Adebolajo and Adebowale were a "team of two" and that neither man accepted the "barbarous reality of their actions".

"The actions of these two men acting together as they did, crashing the car and breaking the back of Lee Rigby and then killing him, is indefensible in the law of this country.

"Killing to make a political point, to frighten the public and put pressure on the government of the day or as an expression of anger is murder and remains murder whether the government is a good one, a bad one or a dreadful one."

Adebolajo and Adebowale sat flanked by seven prison guards in the dock of the oak-panelled court as the jury was shown CCTV footage of Rigby being mowed down from behind by a Vauxhall Tigra.

A group of children returning from a school trip almost walked unwittingly into the gruesome scene, Whittam said, pointing out that the killing "was intended to play out in public and that's what happened".

He added: "What was the purpose of that they have done, killing Lee Rigby in the way they have done, in putting the body there and staying at the scene? To borrow a phrase from the first defendant – carnage."

Adebolajo's barrister, David Gottlieb, made references to Shakespeare, EastEnders, John le Carre and the poet Edmund Blunden in his closing speech.

Gottlieb told jurors they would be under pressure "from the mob, the world" to convict Adebolajo of murder, but said they should acquit him if they are unconvinced by the prosecution's evidence.

Politicians had painted Adebolajo as a "total monster", Gottlieb said, before suggesting that his client was "the most law-abiding terrorist in the history of this country" because he had paid for a parking ticket shortly before the alleged murder took place.

He added: "A person, a human being, can do the most evil act in the world and not actually be evil themselves. All I'm asking on behalf of my client is that you try this case according to the same standards that you would for anybody else."

The trial continues.

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