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Man jailed for beheading plot
18/02/2008 17:04 - (SA)
London - A British Muslim was sentenced to life imprisonment on Monday for plotting to kidnap and kill a Muslim soldier in an "Iraq-style" video execution, a court in Leicester ruled.
Parviz Khan, a 37-year-old man of Pakistani originally from Birmingham, central Britain, had planned to lure the soldier off the streets with the promise of drugs and film his beheading as a "deterrent" to all British Muslims serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, Leicester Crown Court was told.
Khan, who admitted the kidnap plot, hatched in January, 2006, will have to serve a minimum of 14 years.
"This was not only a plot to kill a soldier but a plot to undermine the morale of the British Army and inhibit recruitment," Judge Richard Henriques said.
The court was told that Khan planned to snatch the serviceman off the streets and decapitate him "like a pig, burning the soldier's body and parading his head on a stick."
Speaking after the verdict on Monday, detective superintendent Liam O'Brien said Khan would have carried out his plot if the terror cell led by him had not been broken up.
"I strongly believe that if we hadn't taken action when we took it, we would be sitting here now talking about the kidnap and murder of a British soldier among other things," said O'Brien.
But he declined to reveal how close Khan and his accomplices came to fulfilling their mission, which O'Brien said was funded and approved by al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan.
Four other men implicated in the plot are due for sentencing later.
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