A British man of Bangladeshi origins was found guilty, on Wednesday, of a plot to kill British Prime Minister Theresa May. He planned to detonate an explosive device to get into her Downing Street office and then use a knife or a gun to attack her.
Naa’imur Rahman, 20, of north London, was convicted, at the Old Bailey court, of preparing to commit acts of terrorism, reports Reuters.
According to police, he planned to detonate an improvised explosive device at the gates of Downing Street, gain access to May’s office in the ensuing chaos, and kill her.
“We are talking about an individual that would have killed, injured and maimed a number of people— including police officers and members of the public,” said Dean Haydon, head of the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command.
Details of Naa’imur’s violent plans were heard at the Old Bailey; where he has been on trial with another man, 22-year-old Mohammad Aqib Imran— accused of planning to travel abroad either to Libya or Syria to engage in terrorism, reports The Guardian.
The British-Bangladeshi, who has family in Birmingham and north London, was arrested in London on November 28, shortly after the last of a number of meetings with undercover police officers posing as terrorists—and where he had been provided with what he was told was a suicide vest and a bomb, reports Reuters.
Haydon said Naa’imur had been in contact with an uncle who had traveled to Syria, joined IS, and encouraged his nephew to carry out attacks in Britain.
Naa’imur had been planning to carry out the attack for two years but he became determined when he heard that his uncle had been killed in a drone attack last summer, Haydon added.
Police described him as a drifter, who lived on friends’ sofas; attempts to involve him in the government’s counter-extremism program had failed.