Post date: Feb 27, 2014 1:26:43 PM
A British court sentences two British Muslim converts to life in prison for the murder of soldier Lee Rigby. Sentence is met with cheers by demonstrators gathered outside the courts.
LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (FEBRUARY 26, 2014) (REUTERS) - Two British Muslim converts were sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday (February 26) for hacking a soldier to death on a London street in broad daylight, a gruesome killing that horrified the nation and provoked an anti-Islamic backlash.
Michael Adebolajo, who is 29 years old and 22 year old Michael Adebowale were convicted by a jury in December of murdering off-duty soldier Lee Rigby, a 25-year-old Afghan war veteran in Woolwich, southeast London, in May last year.Adebolajo received a whole-life term while Adebowale was told he would serve a minimum period of 45 years.
They were sentenced in their absence after being dragged shouting and struggling down to the cells by security guards with whom they had started brawling in the dock as Judge Nigel Sweeney opened his sentencing remarks.
Sweeney told the Old Bailey court the killing had been "barbaric" and the pair had carried out the crime to "advance (their) extremist cause."
The sentence was greeted with cheers by a large group of far-right demonstrators who had rigged up a mock gallows outside the court in central London.
The murder, which provoked a rise in hate crimes against Muslims in Britain and anti-Islamic street protests, made international headlines as a video of Adebolajo with blood-soaked hands standing in the street justifying the attack to nearby people travelled around the world.
Rigby's wife Rebecca told the court in a written statement that the death of the off-duty soldier, who had served in Afghanistan, Cyprus and Germany, was all the more shocking for having taken place in Britain.
"We both talked about the dangers of Afghanistan and we braced ourselves for it," said Rebecca Rigby. "You do not expect to see this on the streets of the United Kingdom.
"My son will grow up and see images of his dad that no son should have to endure and there's nothing I can do to change this," she said of their two-year-old child.
After the sentencing, Rigby's family issued a short statement saying: "We feel satisfied that justice has been served for Lee."
It was the first killing by Islamist militants in London since four suicide bombers killed 52 people in al Qaeda-inspired attacks on the transport network in July 2005.
Adebolajo and Adebowale, both of Nigerian descent and from Christian families, set upon Rigby with knives and a meat cleaver in what witnesses described as a "horrific frenzied attack" and "like a butcher attacking a joint of meat."
In court on Wednesday, Adebolajo's defence lawyer had sought leniency from the judge as he said the pair targeted a soldier, rather than the wider public, did not use explosives and could possibly be rehabilitated.
But Sweeney said the two had carried out the murder to advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause.