IS supporter who attacked Tube passengers with knife jailed for life
man who attacked Tube passengers with a knife and tried to behead one of them has been jailed for life.
Somali-born Muhiddin Mire, 30, targeted people at random during the attack inspired by so-called Islamic State at Leytonstone station in London on 5 December.
He grabbed musician Lyle Zimmerman, 56, and attempted to murder him by cutting his throat.
Mire will serve a minimum of eight and a half years before being considered for parole and will start his sentence at Broadmoor secure hospital.
The incident was caught on CCTV and mobile phone footage taken by a passer-by.
One onlooker shouted at him: “You ain’t no Muslim, bruv”, after he declared he was going to “spill blood” for his “Syrian brothers”. Sentencing him at the Old Bailey, Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC said while he accepted Mire was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia he was also of the opinion he had been motivated by events in Syria.
He continued: “In other words, because Muslims were being bombed in Syria, he was going to attack civilians here. That was designed to intimidate a section of the public, and it was to advance an extreme cause.”
Judge Hilliard added that Mire’s “brazen” actions were carried out in order to advance a “religious and extremist cause”.