Islam religion of peace: UK judge

LONDON: A teenage Iraqi asylum seeker who planted a homemade bomb on a rush-hour London underground train has been jailed for life with a recommendation that he serve a minimum of 34 years, reports The Guardian.

Ahmed Hassan, who claims to be 18, was convicted of attempted murder after the device partially detonated at Parsons Green, west London, in September last year. “Your desire and intention that morning was to kill as many members of the British public as possible,” Mr Justice Haddon-Cave told Hassan. “I am satisfied that you were determined to cause as much death and carnage as possible.”

Describing the way in which Hassan had slipped off the train before the device was due to explode, the judge said: “You wanted to save your own skin and were not prepared for shahada [martyrdom]. You will have plenty of time to study the Quran in prison in the years to come. You should understand that the Quran is a book of peace, Islam is a religion of peace. You have violated the Qur’an and Islam by your actions, as well as the law of all civilised people. It is to be hoped that you will come to realise this one day.” Hassan had carried out the attack with “ruthless determination and almost military efficiency”, said the judge. “There is no doubt in my mind that you are a very dangerous and devious individual.”

More than 50 people were injured when a fireball swept through the carriage, burning passengers’ skin, hair and clothing, or suffered crush injuries as people fell over each other while trying to escape. Survivors spoke of feeling their faces being simultaneously burned and cut by flying glass.

Alison Morgan, prosecuting, told the court that Hassan intended to commit mass murder on a crowded tube train. He was living with foster parents in Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey, and admitted making the bomb by creating triacetone triperoxide (TATP), a powerful but unstable explosive. He made an initiator using a halogen bulb.

Around the device he had packed 2.2kg of shrapnel, including five kitchen knives, two screwdrivers, nails and screws.

Hassan had denied attempted murder and causing an explosion, telling the London court that he had made the bomb because he was “very bored, very depressed, very confused” and wanted to draw attention to himself.

The jury heard that both Hassan’s parents were dead by the time he was six, and he told one of his college lecturers that he believed he had “a duty to hate Britain”, which he blamed for the death of his father in an air raid on Baghdad.

He had also complained about the ongoing airstrikes against Iraq, sending a text message to the same lecturer in which he said: “Your country continues to bomb my people daily.”

The court heard that Hassan had told Home Office immigration officials he was abducted by Islamic State in Iraq, and had spent three months “being trained how to kill”.

He had then made his way to Britain via Istanbul, Paris and Calais, entering the country in October 2015 as a 16-year-old stowaway in the back of a lorry.

Hassan told the court, however, that he had had no contact with Isis, and had fabricated this account in an attempt to win sympathy and secure leave to remain in the UK.

The judge said he believed both that Hassan had been associated with Isis, and that he was older than 18.

After his trial, it emerged that he had been a subject of the Prevent counter-radicalisation programme, and appeared to be making good progress after receiving educational and mental health support. Police say they believe him to be a “cunning and devious” individual who intended to kill a large number of people.