Guilty of "Terrorist Targeting"
Man jailed for plot to kill Iraq war hero
Staff and agencies
Thursday January 26, 2006
A market stall holder who plotted to "hunt down" and kill a decorated British soldier was jailed for six years today.
British-born Abu Mansha, 21, obtained an address for Corporal Mark Byles after reading coverage in the Sun newspaper of how he led a bayonet charge in which he killed up to 20 Iraqi insurgents.
When Mansha's flat in Thamesmead, south east London, was searched by Special Branch in March last year they found a blank-firing gun in the process of being converted to shoot live rounds.
There was also a scrap of paper with the name of Cpl Byles and the word "hero", as well as a "horrific" collection of DVDs showing Osama bin Laden and the beheading of British hostage Ken Bigley.
In a two-week trial at Southwark crown court, the prosecution said the media coverage of the 35-year-old soldier's acts - which won him a Military Cross - had put him at the top of Mansha's potential hit-list.
Mansha, the son of a Pakistani-born travel agent, was convicted just before Christmas under the Terrorism Act of possessing information "likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism".
Today, Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith told him that the fact that no attack had happened was a mitigating factor in terms of his sentence, as was his lack of intelligence and the influence of others. However the judge told an impassive Mansha that despite these facts he was imposing a sentence of six years, four years less than the maximum allowed sentence.
Judge Loraine-Smith told Mansha: "You have never faced a charge for conspiracy to kill or cause harm and I do not sentence you for that, but when that information [the soldier's address] came into your possession and was recorded by you, you crossed the boundary into terrorism."
An impact statement about the effect of the case on Cpl Byles was submitted to the court before sentencing. It was not read out, but the judge accepted it made "unhappy reading".
The judge said the address for the soldier was in Mansha's handwriting, as was a request for information about a rich Jewish man and the Hindu owner of a cash and carry business. "The jury rejected your claims that these were just journalistic inquiries," Judge Loraine-Smith said.
During the trial, David Cocks QC, prosecuting, said Mansha, a former waiter at a pizza restaurant, had come up with the targets of a Jew and a Hindu "because of their religious beliefs".
Mr Cocks said Mansha had the piece of paper containing the soldier's details "either to kill him or to do him really serious injury to exact revenge".
By doing so, Mansha hoped "British soldiers in particular and the British public in general might be intimidated and the radical Islamic cause might be advanced", Mr Cocks said.
The barrister added that the "extremely distasteful and virulent" material in the flat clearly indicated the "nature of the interests of this defendant and other people who used that flat".
At the flat, police also recovered a poem Mansha had written describing the prime minister, Tony Blair, and the US president, George Bush, as "dirty pigs".
During the trial, Cpl Byles spoke from behind screens as he gave a brief but graphic account of the bloody confrontation in the "volatile" Iraqi area of Al Amara on May 14 2004.
A soldier for 13 years, the 35-year-old father of one, recalled: "I had two choices: stay there and be cut to pieces... or put down concentrated fire and attack the positions, which is what I did."
The Sun article described Cpl Byles as first charging a trench of rebels before rifle-butting, punching and kicking them in hand-to-hand combat. He was quoted saying: "It was either me or them."
A paragraph had been circled which said he "reckons he killed between 15 and 20 insurgents".
Cpl Byles was awarded the Military Cross for both "immense professionalism under fire" and bravery in leading an assault on an enemy position.
Mansha, whose fingerprints were found all over the newspaper, told jurors he was neither a strict Muslim nor had any strong political views, and denied having anything to do with terrorism.
He said most of the items found in his apartment were connected with research he was helping a journalist friend to carry out, while the pistol had been bought from a market stall as a souvenir.
Before sentencing today, defence QC Jeremy Carter-Manning pleaded for the judge to show mercy to his client, who he insisted was "at the very highest, an utter incompetent".
The QC went on: "You are not sentencing a man of academic high-flying ability. The likelihood of reoffending is described [in the pre-sentence report] as low. This man was not really into terrorism, not in the way the public understands that ... he was a mile away from it."
Peter Clarke, head of Scotland Yard's Anti-Terrorist Branch, said after the case: "Abu Mansha researched the personal details of several people. Put this together with the other material that was found when he was arrested and it is obvious that he was involved in terrorist targeting."
A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said it took the "the security and welfare of its personnel very seriously". Mansha had a previous conviction for affray following a racial confrontation with another market stall holder three years ago.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/...html?gusrc=rss
Well now isn't that cool.
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