Man jailed for life over terror plan to murder Theresa May
A man who plotted to murder the Prime Minister and bomb Downing Street has been jailed for life.
Naa'imur Rahman, 20, of North London will serve a minimum term of 30 years in prison after he was found guilty of planning to detonate a homemade device in Westminster and use the chaos to assassinate Theresa May.
Rahman's scheme unravelled when he unwittingly contacted online undercover officers from the Metropolitan Police, MI5 and FBI in September last year and revealed his terror attack plot.
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He gave details of preparatory work he was doing, including carrying out reconnaissance missions to Parliament, which was later verified by CCTV, and asked the officers to help him obtain a bomb.
Rahman gave the undercover police officer a coat and a rucksack to be converted into a suicide jacket and a bomb in a bag, which were returned to him as replica weapons on 28 November.
He told the covert officer "now I've seen everything, it feels good", and was arrested by counter terrorism police as he walked away.
Metropolitan Police deputy assistant commissioner Dean Haydon said: “Rahman is an extremely dangerous and determined individual.
“Rahman’s target was the Prime Minister but he had no qualms about killing innocent bystanders in the process of reaching her. In fact, at one point he told a covert counter terrorism officer that even if he could not reach the Prime Minister, he just wanted to strike fear into people.
“This case demonstrates the strength of the cooperation between the UK’s intelligence agencies and the FBI. As a result, we were able to disrupt Rahman’s plans and ensure that a terrorist attack was prevented.”
Rahman was found guilty of engaging in conduct in preparation of terrorist acts on Wednesday, 18 July at the Old Bailey.
He pleaded guilty to another charge related to a sponsorship video he filmed for an associate.
As part of the investigation, Mohammad Aquid Iman, 22, from Birmingham was charged with collection of information useful to terrorism in relation to a terrorist guidance book which was recovered from his Kindle following his arrest on 28 November last year.
He was found guilty of this offence on 18 July.
Imran was also charged with engaging in conduct in preparation of terrorist acts in relation to his alleged plan to travel to Libya to join Daesh.
The jury did not reach a verdict on this charge and a retrial will take place.
Imran will be sentenced following the conclusion of his retrial.
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