Four Islamist fanatics who planned an outrage using a pipe bomb and a meat cleaver were jailed for life yesterday as the judge praised the work of police and MI5 in averting a “catastrophic” attack.
Only one of the terrorist cell, who dubbed themselves the Three Musketeers, turned up for their sentencing at the Old Bailey over the planned attack on military, police or public targets.
Mr Justice Globe said the plot, which was stopped last summer after an elaborate undercover operation, would have involved a “considerable loss of life and serious injury”, and compared it to the attacks in Manchester and London Bridge. Khobaib Hussain, 25, and Naweed Ali, 29, both from Birmingham, and Mohibur Rahman, 33, from Stoke-on-Trent, who all had previous terrorism convictions, will serve a minimum of 20 years.
Tahir Aziz, 38, also of Stoke, a late recruit and the only one to attend sentencing, will serve at least 15 years.
The judge said he was in no doubt that the three main defendants were highly dangerous offenders and that “each poses a significant risk to members of the public of serious harm from the commission of further offences”.
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He said that messages sent the day before the men were arrested suggested an attack was “imminent, albeit not necessarily immediate”. The judge paid tribute to a “combination of surveillance and undercover law enforcement work”.
