An Iraqi doctor found guilty of trying to murder hundreds of people in failed car bombings in London and Glasgow was jailed for at least 32 years yesterday.
Bilal Abdulla, 29, who was born in Britain but raised in Iraq, was found guilty at Woolwich Crown Court in southeast London on Tuesday of conspiracy to cause explosions for the failed attacks in June last year.
Judge Colin Crichton Mackay told Abdulla that he was a “religious extremist and a bigot” before passing two life sentences on him, with a minimum of 32 years.
“Many people felt and still feel strong opposition to the invasion of Iraq. You do, you are sincere in that and you have strong reasons for holding that view,” Mackay said.
“But you were born with intelligence and you were born into a privileged and well-to-do position in Iraq and you are a trained doctor,” he said.
Abdulla’s radical beliefs meant he remains a danger, he said.
“All of the evidence makes you a very dangerous man, you pose a high risk of serious harm to the British public in your present state of mind,” he said. “That fact plus the circumstances of the offenses themselves means that the only possible sentence on each of these two counts is a life sentence.”
Abdulla had admitted he was a “terrorist,” but accused the British government of terrorism for invading Iraq and said he was not trying to kill or injure anyone.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the