adminLONDON. — Two Muslim extremists were found guilty yesterday of hacking to death a British soldier in broad daylight on a London street.
Michael Adebolajo (29), and Michael Adebowale (22), ploughed into Lee Rigby with a car before attacking him with knives outside his barracks in May.
Adebolajo tried to behead Rigby with a meat cleaver in front of horrified passers-by.
The pair said they attacked the 25-year-old fusilier to avenge the deaths of Muslims at the hands of British troops.
State prosecutors described the killing as “one of the most savage offences ever prosecuted by our counter-terrorism lawyers”.
Rigby’s relatives, who had walked out of the trial several times during harrowing evidence about his death, broke down in tears as the guilty verdicts were given.
Adebolajo kissed his copy of the Koran as he was taken down to the cells at the Old Bailey court in London.
At the same time jurors cleared Adebolajo and Adebowale of the attempted murder of a police officer.
The pair were shot and wounded by armed police at the murder scene in Woolwich, southeast London, after Adebolajo charged at them waving the meat cleaver, while Adebowale raised a rusty, unloaded gun.
The killers, both Britons who were raised by Nigerian Christian families before converting to Islam, may not be sentenced until January.
The court heard that they styled themselves as “soldiers of Islam”, but the judge ruled that this could not be used as a defence.
Minutes after the murder, Adebolajo, still wielding the cleaver and with his hands covered in blood, told onlookers the attack was “an eye for an eye”.
“We swear by the almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone,” he said in a rant filmed on a witness’s mobile phone.
“I apologise that women had to witness this today, but in our lands our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe.”
Rigby’s family said justice had been done, but “no amount of justice will bring Lee back”.
His widow Rebecca, mother of their toddler son, sobbed as a family spokesman told reporters outside the court: “This has been the toughest time of our lives. No one should have to go through what we’ve been through as a family.”
In a police interview after the killing, Adebolajo said he had tried to behead Rigby because it was the most “humane” way of ending his life, comparing it to halal butchery.
The defendants’ lawyers told the court the pair had hoped to become “martyrs” by challenging armed police at the murder scene with the aim of being killed.
The trial heard that they targeted Rigby, who had served in Afghanistan, simply because he was the first soldier they came across.
The murder stunned Britain and sparked a rise in community tensions, with several mosques attacked by arsonists.
British Muslim leaders deplored the killing. – AFP.
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