The school boy jihadi and his secret list of British targets
A BOY of 14 who plotted over the internet to behead a policeman in Australia had drawn up a list of potential terror targets in the UK, it can be revealed today.
The baby- faced loner yesterday became Britain’s youngest convicted Islamic terrorist when he admitted inciting an Australian youth to behead, run over or shoot a police officer during the Anzac Day parade in Melbourne.
He told fanatic Sevdet Besim, 18, to get ready for his ‘first taste of beheading’, adding: ‘You are a lone wolf, a wolf that begs Allah for forgiveness a wolf that doesn’t fear blame of the blamers.’
Details of the Lee Rigby-style plot have shocked counter-terrorism officials hunting so called lone-wolf terrorists inspired by Islamic State.
It can also be revealed the schoolboy was researching potential targets in Britain and teaching himself how to detonate devices and explosives. On his hit list were a police station, a town hall and BAE Systems, the global defence and aerospace firm.
By the time he was arrested in March this year, the bespectacled youngster – who was obsessed with IS – had been known to the security services since he was 13.
Police had visited his home in Blackburn 16 months before the Anzac plot came to light after being alerted to his worrying views on jihad, Osama bin Laden and his desire to be a martyr.
But because he was using encrypted messaging apps to communicate with fellow terror suspects, counter- t errorism detectives did not realise the extent of the threat he posed.
Last night his mother insisted the boy, whom she said had hoped to be a solicitor, may have been ‘brainwashed’ over the internet. ‘I
‘Erratic behaviour’
wouldn’t call him a terrorist, he’s a child. I know he would not have harmed anyone. I know my son,’ she told the Daily Mail.
The Anzac Day beheading plot unravelled only after the boy – who cannot be named due to his age – was arrested for making threats to kill at his school in the North West. On his Samsung phone, found under his bed, police uncovered evidence of jihad communications, images, web searches and conversations.
Further inquiries revealed the boy and Besim had shared thousands of messages online, enthusiastically plotting the IS-inspired attack in Melbourne. Besim was arrested by Australian police.
When charged earlier this year, the Blackburn boy became the youngest suspect in Britain to be charged with a terror offence.
Now aged 15, he admitted inciting another person to commit a terrorist act when he appeared in court yesterday.
He sat alongside his father, a successful businessman, at Manchester Crown Court as he entered the guilty plea via videolink to the Old Bailey.
Prosecutor Paul Greaney QC said: ‘This charge represents conduct over a ten- day period in March this year, of inciting an Australian-based man to commit an act of terrorism abroad, namely murder a police officer during a parade to commemorate Anzac Day. The evidence of the plot derives from literally thousands of i nstant messages between the defendant and Sevdet Besim, recovered from the defendant’s mobile phone.
‘The messages revealed the intention of the plot and the target, along with motivation summarised as support for ISIS and enthusiasm for the attack.’
A trial has been expected to take place next month, but the boy entered a guilty plea to the first of the two charges he was facing. Mr Greaney said the second count, of encouraging Besim to carry out another decapitation on a ‘loner’ in their own home, would be deleted.
The boy, who is almost blind in one eye, had previously been in trouble for poor behaviour at school. Two years ago, he was sent to a referral unit for troubled children. In November 2013, he was referred to a de-radicalisation programme called Channel because of his erratic behaviour. Yesterday the boy’s f amily insisted they were not extremists. His mother, 36, said they had no time for Islamic State or other radical movements.
She added: ‘We think he has been pressurised to plead guilty. He’s not a terrorist, he’s a child. It’s not him, he is not to be blamed. Maybe the boy in Australia is to blame, I don’t know, he is older.’
At the Old Bailey, Mr Justice Saunders ordered reports before sentencing on September 3, saying: ‘I want to know if there is any indoctrination or belief in this case. I want some assessment of that, why and how they have occurred, and what measures can be taken in order to reverse that process.’
He said the sentencing process would be ‘extremely difficult’. Legal sources said a jail term of several years was likely.