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December 20, 2013

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‘Soldiers of Allah’ guilty of killing UK serviceman

Source: Agencies | December 20, 2013, Friday | Print Edition

A jury yesterday convicted two British men who considered themselves “soldiers of Allah” of murdering a serviceman who was run down with a car and stabbed to death in a frenzied attack on a London street.

The jury of eight women and four men deliberated for just 90 minutes before finding Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale guilty of murdering Fusilier Lee Rigby. The jury also acquitted them of attempting to murder a police officer.

The two men will be sentenced next year.

Neither defendant reacted as the jury foreman announced the verdicts. Adebolajo, 29,  smiled and kissed a copy of the Quran as he was led to the cells.

Members of Rigby’s family stood in tears outside London’s Central Criminal Court as a police officer read out a statement on their behalf.

“We are satisfied that justice has been done,” the statement said. “But unfortunately no amount of justice will bring Lee back.”

Adebolajo and Adebowale, 22, had pleaded not guilty to murder, though neither denied taking part in the May 22 attack.

Rigby, 25, was returning on foot to his barracks when he was hit by a car, then stabbed and nearly decapitated.

Adebolajo was filmed by a passer-by moments after the attack, covered in blood and holding a cleaver and a knife, justifying the killing as revenge for British troops killing people abroad.

“An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” he said on the video.

Adebolajo later told the police, in an interview played in court, that Rigby had been targeted because “he was the soldier that was spotted first.”

Adebowale, who has suffered mental health issues since his arrest, chose to present no evidence in his defense during the 3-week trial. His lawyer, Abbas Lakha, told the jury his client agreed with Adebolajo’s description of the attack as a “military operation” and the two men as soldiers.

After the attack the two killers waited at the scene, charged a police car, and were shot and wounded by officers.

The attack raised questions about whether UK intelligence services could have done more to prevent Rigby’s killing.

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