A British teenager has been sentenced to at least five years in jail for a terrorist plot to kill police officers in Australia.
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The two teens sent more than 3,000 messages in nine days, with the Brit telling Besim to get his “first taste of beheading” and to “buy a machete and sharpen it, run over a police officer and then decapitate him”, the New York Times reported.
The boy, a practicing Muslim from Blackburn in northern England, was found guilty after being tried at a court in Manchester and was sentenced on Friday.
Mr Justice Saunders said the defendant’s life term meant he would not be released until he is considered not to be risky. “I have given this matter very careful thought ’cause of the outcome so passing a sentence of detention for life on someone of (boys) age yet I have a duty to protect the public”, the judicial judge stated.
Besim who was one of the five teenagers arrested by police in Australia is also awaiting his trial there.
He continued: “The revelation in this case that someone of only 14 could have become so radicalised that he was prepared to carry out this role intending and wishing that people should die is chilling”. This year’s event marked the battle’s hundredth anniversary. He attracted tens of thousands of followers through a Twitter profile promoting violence. The court heard a Daesh recruiter put in contact him.
“From the early communication we could read, it was obvious the Anzac Day memorial service was going to be a target”, said Detective Chief Superintendent Tony Mole of the North West Counter Terrorism Unit. “However, this should not detract from the horror of what he was planning”.
The boy’s family said in a statement issued through their solicitor that they were “shocked and devastated” at the child’s arrest.
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He described the perpetrators of the deadly Charlie Hebdo terror attacks in Paris in January as his “heroes”, prosecutors said.
