‘Attack the tourist crusaders, police, soldiers or the western embassies’
From his teenage years, Sudesh Amman shared his chilling doctrine of hate with family and friends
SUDESH AMMAN was just 17, a college student and living at home when he started sharing extremist material online in a Whatsapp group with his family, friends and even his girlfriend.
In messages with one relative, he suggested that as Yazidi women were slaves, the Koran made it permissible to rape them. He even sent beheading videos to his girlfriend – whom he said should kill her “kuffar” parents.
Amman told her: “If you can’t make a bomb because family, friends or spies are watching or suspecting you, take a knife, molotov, sound bombs or a car at night and attack the tourists (crusaders), police and soldiers of taghut, or western embassies in every country you are in this planet.”
His Old Bailey trial heard he also possessed bomb-making manuals and a document called “Bloody Brazilian Knife Fightin’ Techniques”.
He was jailed for three years and four months by Judge Mark Lucraft, QC, but under current laws, he was automatically released halfway through his sentence. The Daily Telegraph revealed last year concerns about his impending release.
Since his release last month, he had been under surveillance, and the strictest licence conditions because of concerns that he remained radicalised.
Within weeks, however, his obsession with knives turned into grim reality in Streatham High Road when he mounted a fatal final rampage.
Amman first came to the attention of police in April 2018 when officers were alerted to online postings containing extremist material on Telegram, under the account name @strangertothisworld. Police forensic specialists cracked the identity as Amman, and officers decided to arrest him so they could carry out a forensic analysis of his electronic media communications.
They recovered more than 349,000 media files from his digital devices, including manuals on combat techniques, knife fighting and bomb -making.
They also sifted through more than 180,000 lines of chat on Skype, identifying that he had shared four links to videos depicting graphic violence by the terrorists.
He had also told his family, friends and girlfriend of his strong and often extreme views on jihad, the “kuffar” and his desire to carry out a terrorist attack.
“Much of his fascination with conducting an attack was focused on using a knife but reference was also made to committing acid attacks on mopeds,” according to Crown Prosecution (CPS) documents.
One day in November 2017, he sent numerous messages via Whatsapp depicting child fighters and what seemed to be Isil-inspired propaganda.
Just before Christmas 2017, he told his brother that “the Islamic State is here to stay”.
According to the CPS, in the same chat he talked about Muslims in London being massacred and put in conditions worse than concentration camps, and that as Yazidi women are slaves, it is permissible to rape them.
On New Year’s Day 2018, he posted a link to the Isil propaganda magazine Inspire 16 and described in a discussion about school with his sibling how he would “rather blow myself up” and wanted to know “how to make bombs”.
His fascination with knives was evident two days later when he posted, again on the family Whatsapp, group a picture of a young man with a large knife.
Other images on the group appeared to show his siblings in poses reminiscent of Isil-inspired supporters, such as one-finger salutes and wielding weaponry.
On Jan 14 2018, he posted an image of text attributed to “Sheikh Faisal” (aka convicted extremist Trevor Forrest).
He was charged on May 24 2018, and pleaded guilty to all but three of the charges and was jailed on Dec 17 2018.
Acting Commander Alexi Boon, who led the investigation, said after the trial that Amman had a fierce interest in violence and martyrdom, an extremism which had developed over at least a year.
He said: “His fascination with dying in the name of terrorism was clear in a notepad we recovered from his home.
“Amman had scrawled his ‘life goals’ in the notepad, and top of the list, above family activities, was dying a martyr and going to ‘Jannah’ – the afterlife.”
Given Amman’s history, questions will now inevitably be asked about why he was free to roam the streets.