Jail for wedding day terror plotters Couple turned home into deadly training ground
AHUSBAND and wife who turned their Alum Rock home into a terror training ground and talked of launching an attack on their wedding day have been jailed.
Former accountant Ummar Mirza researched terror acts and bought a steel hunting blade and a rubber training knife, which he used to practise on a dummy at their house.
Wife Madihah Taheer handed over her bank details so he could buy the £120 knife.
On Wednesday, Ummar was jailed for 16 years, and his wife for ten years, at Woolwich Crown Court.
Before they were wed, Taheer, 22, encouraged Mirza, telling him: “Can we get married already? I want you to kill people for me. I have a list.”
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.”
In other messages to each other, Mirza, 21, said he wanted to stab someone 27 times, to which Taheer replied “that sounds so satisfying”.
Mirza admitted one count of preparing terrorist acts between January and March this year but two counts of possessing information useful to a terrorist were left on file.
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.
“The harm which might have been caused is undoubtedly high. 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.”
He added that Mirza had shown “inexorable progress” towards an attack, and had “moved from speculative ideas to sourcing equipment, to training and searching for targets”.
Taheer denied any involvement but was found guilty of the preparation of terrorist acts between February 12 and March 30 this year, through buying the knife. She was jailed for 10 years with an extended period of one year.
Judge Kinch said her case was a “personal tragedy” as the trial came when her first child was just five months old, and he was not satisfied that she could be classed as dangerous.
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 January 10 and 23 this year. She was sentenced to 30 months’ imprisonment.
The Crown Prosecution Service said the conversations showed Taheer was a “willing accomplice” who knew what Mirza wanted to use the knife for.
Prosecutor John McGuinness QC said: “The evidence shows that these two defendants held a shared belief in violent pro-jihad, Islamic State extremism. They show evidence of supporting the Islamic State, its methods, beliefs and aims.”