Jihadist wife gave husband combat knife ‘to kill for me’
Woman purchased lifelike dummy for partner to practise on ahead of him committing terrorist act
A WOMAN bought her husband a hunting knife and lifelike plastic dummy to stab after she urged him to commit terrorist atrocities for her, a court heard.
Madihah Taheer had courted her partner with boasts that she held more extreme views than him and said she fantasised about the beheading of Katie Hopkins, the newspaper columnist.
The 21-year-old encouraged Ummariyat Mirza by telling him she needed a brave husband to kill for her. Taheer, from Birmingham, was yesterday found guilty of one count of preparing a terrorist attack after a trial at Woolwich Crown Court.
Mirza, also 21, pleaded guilty to the same charge last week after conducting research online about targets and how to carry out attacks.
Jurors were shown hundreds of text conversations from the couple’s courtship onwards, as they shared propaganda videos for Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil) and discussed carrying out attacks. In messages to each other, Mirza said he wanted to stab someone 27 times, to which Taheer replied that “sounds so satisfying”.
He sent her a video of him pretending to stab a chair and asked her to buy him a knife. West Midlands Police said Mirza, a former accountant, was planning to carry out an attack in the UK.
In one exchange seven months before their April 2016 marriage, Taheer told Mirza: “Can we get married already ffs. I want you to kill 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 another 2015 exchange, Mirza said he wanted to decapitate Paul Golding, the leader of Britain First.
Taheer then added: “Omd I fantasise about Katie Hopkins head. She’s the biggest kuthi [bitch] of them all.”
The couple took turns to boast who was the most committed to jihad, with Taheer taunting him as “Mr Moderate”.
The couple also made plans to join Isil after their marriage, and talked about how they would break the news to their parents. But Taheer said she was concerned she would be unable to get laser eye surgery to fix her faltering eyesight in the militants’ self-style caliphate. Mirza suggested she could get her eyes treated in paradise.
Taheer bought Mirza a hunting knife online for £120 and spent £275 on a plastic torso for him to practise stabbing. When police raided their home, officers found the dummy with slash marks across the forehead, throat and abdomen.
The court had also heard Mirza was sent extremist material by Zainub, his 23-year-old sister. She had earlier pleaded guilty to five counts of disseminating terrorist publications.
Police arrested Mirza in rush hour traffic in March amid fears the couple’s plot was coming to fruition and an attack was imminent. Det Ch Supt Matt
‘It is not known where an attack would have been, but we discovered research into potential targets, including military sites’
Ward, head of the West Midlands Counter Terrorist Unit, said: “Ummariyat Mirza’s plan was escalating quickly so the decision to carry out arrests in a busy Birmingham street at rush hour was not taken lightly.”
Planning had begun in 2015, he said, but gained momentum as more extremist messages and propaganda videos were shared among the trio.
He said: “It is thought Mirza and his wife, encouraged by Zainub, were planning to carry out an attack in the UK. It is not known where this attack would have been, but we discovered research into potential targets, including military sites in the area.”
Sentencing will be at a later date.