Family of Tube knifeman took him to mosque for exorcism
THE family of a taxi driver who tried to behead a man at a London Tube station brought in a Muslim imam to exorcise his evil spirits, a court heard yesterday.
Muhiddin Mire, 30, was taken to a mosque by his brother to try to halt his spiral into volatile mental illness.
The former Uber driver was regularly read passages of the Koran to flush out Islamic spirits known as ‘jinn’.
He believed the ‘treatment’ was working and stopped taking his medication four months before he ran amok at Leytonstone Tube station.
The rituals were revealed at the Old Bailey yesterday as Mire was jailed for life for the brutal attack on Lyle Zimmerman, 56, last December. The American musician survived despite being dragged to the ground as the assailant sawed at his neck with a broken bread knife.
Mire shouted: ‘ This is for Syria, I’m going to spill your blood.’ Another man was heard on mobile phone footage yelling: ‘You ain’t no Muslim, bruv.’
Police found Mire, a Somalian refugee, had become obsessed with Islamic State, researching beheadings and the murders of Jihadi John on the web.
Ordering him to serve at least eight-and-a-half years in prison, Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC said Mire posed a risk to the public.
He said the attacker was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and should start his sentence under maximum security at Broadmoor Hospital.
The judge added that Mire may have been affected by smoking strong ‘ skunk’ cannabis before the attack.
‘This was an attempt to kill an innocent member of the public for ideological reasons by cutting his throat in plain sight for maximum impact,’ Judge Hilliard said. ‘I am satisfied that the defendant was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the offence.
‘That’s a major mental illness and it was untreated ... he has said to medical personnel since the offence that he thought Mr Zimmerman was an agent of the security services who has him under surveillance. At the time he said that because Muslims were under attack in Syria, he was going to attack innocent civilians here.
‘I am sure that even in his disordered mind he was not attacking Mr Zimmerman or any of the other people because he thought they were agents of the state – he
‘Paranoid schizophrenia’
acted for the reasons I have outlined … it was carried out to advance an ideological cause.’
Mire’s brother had become so concerned about his behaviour that he bought a plane ticket for him to go and visit their mother in Somalia.
But on December 5, the day before the flight, Mire targeted Mr Zimmerman at random.
CCTV cameras caught him kicking his victim in the head before ‘sawing’ at his neck. Mire then tried to slash at least four other commuters before being stunned by police using Taser weapons.
The attack came three days after the House of Commons vote on the bombing of Islamic State terrorists in Syria.
Mire, who lived in a flat near the station, told police: ‘You all agreed now that it’s OK to have a coalition, crusader coalition and to attack the Muslims … so basically it was revenge you know, cos [sic] there’s no other ways of stopping it.’
His mental illness had begun in 2006 when he was detained in hospital after describing Tony Blair as his ‘guardian angel’.
Last August he gave up his job as an Uber cab driver, later claiming that he was being followed by MI5 and MI6. He went to see a GP but it took two weeks to refer him to a mental health unit and he launched his attack before he could be seen by a specialist.