Mosque bomber serving life made ‘viable’ explosive in his jail cell in Yorkshire

A WHITE supremacist serving a life sentence for a racist murder and bombing mosques has admitted making an explosive substance in his cell at a maximumsecurity jail.

Chemical engineer Pavlo Lapshyn, 32, used salt, copper wire, pencils and other substances to form an ingredient that could cause an explosion.

When officers at the category A HMP Wakefield found a plate with a white substance on it in his cell in August 2018, he told them he was trying to make a firework.

Lapshyn, a Ukrainian, had just started a work placement in the UK when he murdered 82-yearold Mohammed Saleem in Walsall by randomly stabbing the grandfather in the back with a hunting knife in 2013.

In the following months he planted bombs near mosques in the West Midlands, later stating his aim was to start a race war.

Since he was jailed for life with a minimum term of 40 years, he has been psychiatrically assessed and has an autism diagnosis and “significant mental health problems”, Leeds Crown Court heard.

Lapshyn appeared in court via a videolink from HMP Whitemoor, Cambridgeshire. He pleaded guilty to making an explosive substance.

He was heard singing at times during the hearing and declined to be present when Judge Tom Bayliss QC passed a two-year jail sentence.

Peter Hampton, prosecuting, said Lapshyn admitted to officers he had been preparing chemicals and they informed counter-terrorism specialists at the prison.

They knew of his background as a chemical engineering PhD student, his racially motivated murder and explosives campaign and “a long-standing interest in pyrotechnics”, Mr Hampton said. The defendant told officers he was trying to produce potassium chloride. A smell of bleach could be detected in the cell.

A forensic expert who was called in determined Lapshyn had formed a viable explosive substance.