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Lee Rigby murder: Michael Adebolajo applies to appeal against conviction Lee Rigby murder: Michael Adebolajo applies to appeal against conviction
(about 2 hours later)
One of the two men found guilty of the murder of the soldier Lee Rigby has lodged an application to appeal against his conviction, the Judicial Office has confirmed. A man found guilty of murdering the soldier Lee Rigby in a terrorist attack has applied to appeal against his conviction, arguing that the judge made repeated legal blunders which rendered his trial unfair.
The move by Michael Adebolajo, 29, follows his conviction with co-defendant Michael Adebowale, 22, at the Old Bailey last month. Michael Adebolajo was convicted in December of the murder during which he and Michael Adebowale butchered and attempted to behead Rigby near the Woolwich military barracks in south London. His application to appeal was lodged last week, but only became public on Thursday.
The two British Muslim converts ran down Rigby in a car before hacking him to death with a meat cleaver and knives in a frenzied attack. They dumped his body in the middle of the road near Woolwich barracks in south-east London on 22 May last year. The 29-year-old's lawyers will argue his case for appeal on five separate grounds, including that the trial judge refused to let his defence that he was acting as a soldier go before the jury.
The verdicts, which took the jury just 90 minutes to reach, provoked widespread condemnation of the attack from high-profile figures, including the prime minister and the home secretary, Theresa May. Having admitted the killing, Adebolajo had wanted to claim he was not guilty of murder because a state of war exists between Britain and Muslims, meaning his attack was a military strike, not a criminal act. In legal argument, Mr Justice Sweeney ruled against letting the claim go before the jury to consider.
Adebolajo, a married father of six, and Adebowale lay in wait near Woolwich barracks and picked 25-year-old Fusilier Rigby to kill, assuming he was a soldier because he was wearing a Help for Heroes hooded top and carrying a camouflage rucksack. Adebolago's lawyers will argue that the trial judge was wrong not to allow the jury to consider his claim that he was acting as a soldier in a liberation struggle and whose victim was attacked because he was a symbol of an oppressive state. They will say that, even if Adebolajo was wrong in this belief, it was for the jury to decide on its merits, and the judge was wrong in law to rule it could not go before them because it did not amount to a defence based on any legal principles.
After driving into the young father in their Vauxhall Tigra, the killers – who had armed themselves with eight knives, including a meat cleaver and a five-piece set bought by Adebolajo the previous day – butchered him in the street in front of horrified onlookers. The lawyers will also claim the judge was legally wrong not to allow the jury to consider a charge of manslaughter, and that the judge did not correct alleged factual errors in his summing up to the jury.
The jury of eight women and four men sat through weeks of evidence including shocking footage of Adebolajo with bloodied hands confessing to the killing and claiming his actions were "an eye for an eye". The case against Adebolajo and Adebowale was one of the most overwhelming brought against criminal defendants in modern legal history, with CCTV and mobile phone footage showing them carrying out key parts of the attack, and with Adebolajo confessing to planning and carrying it out.
Both men were shot by police in dramatic scenes captured on CCTV. The jury took just over 90 minutes to convict the men of the murder, but acquitted them of attempting to murder armed police who raced to the scene. The jury seemingly accepted the men's arguments that they had not intended to harm police, but instead ran at police holding knives and a gun, hoping officers would shoot them dead so they would become martyrs.
Adebolajo was seen dropping the meat cleaver as he sprinted across the road towards a police car, collapsing to the ground when he was shot. The men were shot, but only injured, and said their violence was motivated by a hatred of western foreign policy.
Adebowale, who moved along a wall to draw fire from the officers, was seen folding over as he was shot by one of three armed officers. Adebolajo and Adebowale face sentences of life imprisonment, with the main issue for the judge being how long a minimum tariff they should serve before they can even be considered for release. Mr Justice Sweeney is considering imposing a sentence that would mean the pair died in prison. He has delayed sentencing until a higher court rules on whether whole-life tariff sentences can be lawfully handed down.
Both men asked to be called by their adopted Islamic names in court – Adebolajo as Mujahid Abu Hamza, and Adebowale as Ismail Ibn Abdullah – and claimed they carried out the murder because they were "soldiers of Allah". Adebolajo showed no remorse for his actions during the trial, telling jurors that he was a "soldier of Allah" and that he had no choice but to obey the command of Allah. He described how he held the soldier's hair as he hacked at his neck in a motion described by one witness as like a "butcher attacking a joint of meat".
The jury was told this was no defence in law to the charge. It is not yet known if Adebowale, 22, intends to appeal. He never offered any legal defence to the charges.
The men were cleared of the attempted murder of a police officer, and had previously admitted possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence. In May 2013, both men drove around the Woolwich barracks area hunting for a soldier to kill.
A date for the appeal judgment has not been announced following a recent hearing before a panel of five leading judges, headed by the lord chief justice, Lord Thomas. The savagery of the murder, in which Rigby, 25, was repeatedly stabbed and hacked at the neck by a cleaver, shattered community relations when mosques were attacked.
It was the first murderous attack in Britain by those motivated by the al-Qaida ideology of violence since the 7 July 2005 bombings of London's transport system by four suicide bombers.
Adebolajo, assessed by a psychiatrist as sane, was recorded at the scene brandishing a cleaver and a knife in his bloodied hands, and with the body of Rigby lying metres away, saying: "We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you. The only reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day. This British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."
In a police interview he said he had picked Rigby because he was the first soldier they saw. He was stabbed with knives including ones bought the day before from Argos. He claimed he targeted the neck because it was the most humane way to kill someone and added: "So I struck at the neck and attempted to remove the head".
No date has been set for the court of appeal to consider whether it will hear Adebolajo's attempt to have his murder conviction over turned.