LONDON: A convicted terrorist in the UK who tried to hack a prison guard to death watched and transcribed smuggled extremist propaganda videos in the months leading up to the attack.
Brusthom Ziamani, 25, wore a fake suicide vest and used a makeshift knife during the attack on a prison guard in January this year.
He admitted to obtaining a memory card while in prison that had Daesh propaganda videos on it.
Ziamani was already serving a 19-year sentence for plotting to behead a soldier in 2015, and was on Thursday sentenced to life with a minimum of 21 years for the January attack and for obtaining extremist material.
Investigators found a four-page “martyrdom note” in his pocket, which featured comments from Daesh propaganda videos, after he was restrained following the attack.
He had used his cell’s DVD player to watch smuggled propaganda videos, and had transcribed at least one lecture by an Al-Qaeda preacher while in jail.
The Times newspaper reported that Ziamani had previously plotted to kill non-Muslims while in jail.
He is said to have converted to Islam after a youth spent as a practicing Jehovah’s Witness, and was radicalized following a stint committing violent robberies as part of a London gang.
According to The Times, a former inmate that encountered Ziamani in jail said he “knew everybody. They all loved him. He was like a hero to everybody: the drug-dealers, the murderers, the gang-members, the robbers, the thieves. He had charm.”
Ziamani is said to have presided over “Shariah courts” within the prison, and at one point ruled that two young Muslim inmates should be punished with beating for drinking alcohol.
His case is likely to further fuel concern that the UK’s prisons serve as a hotbed of radicalization and extremism.
