Two Brits jailed over plot to kill hundreds of Jews
Two men have been jailed for planning to kill hundreds of people in an Islamic State-inspired attack on Britain’s Jewish community; Prosecutors said the plot could have been deadlier than the mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach in December.
Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, were found guilty on Friday after a trial began at Preston Crown Court a week after an unrelated fatal attack on a synagogue in the northwestern English city of Manchester.
Prosecutors said the pair were Islamic extremists who wanted to use automatic firearms to kill as many Jews as possible in an attack in Manchester.
They were convicted little more than a week after a mass shooting at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in which 15 people were killed.
If Saadaoui and Hussein had followed through on their plan, it “could have been much more serious” than the attacks in Australia and Manchester, prosecutor Harpreet Sandhu said on Friday.
Judge Mark Wall sentenced Saadaoui to at least 37 years in prison and Hussein to at least 26 years, saying: “You were very close to being ready to implement this plan.”
Hussein refused to attend his sentencing because he refused to attend most of his trial; Wall said it reflected Hussein’s cowardice, describing him as “brave enough to plan to threaten an unarmed group with an AK-47, but not brave enough to confront what he had done.”
Sandhu told jurors at the trial that when Saadaoui was arrested in May 2024, he arranged for two assault rifles, an automatic pistol and about 200 rounds of ammunition to be smuggled into England via the port of Dover.
He added that Saadaoui planned to buy two more rifles and a pistol and collect at least 900 rounds of ammunition.
“This would probably be one of the deadliest terrorist attacks ever carried out on British soil,” Wall said.
However, unknown to Saadaoui, a man known as “Farouk” from whom he tried to take the weapons turned out to be an undercover agent who helped thwart the plot.
Bilel Saadaoui, 37-year-old brother of Walid Saadaoui, was found guilty of failing to disclose information regarding terrorist acts. He was sentenced to six years in prison.
