Roshonara Choudhry: programmed assassin?

[Paul Rigby]

My nostrils began twitching violently on the train this morning. Not sure if it was the Liverpool fan sitting opposite me, or the following story, which triggered the attack. Probably the latter. Does what follows ring true? Or is something much more interesting being concealed?

Stephen Timms attacker faces sentencing for attempted murder

Roshonara Choudhry stabbed MP Stephen Timms for supporting Iraq war after becoming radicalised watching sermons online

Vikram Dodd, crime correspondent
The Guardian, Wednesday 3 November 2010

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/03...sentencing

Police believe a gifted student convicted of attempting to stab to death a former government minister for supporting the Iraq war is the first Briton to have been inspired by al-Qaida to try to assassinate a politician on British soil.

A senior police source and those close to Roshonara Choudhry have both told the Guardian she was radicalised after watching internet sermons given by Anwar al-Awlaki, an Islamist cleric, now in Yemen, who the US suspects was the mastermind of several terrorist plots. Top of those is the attempt uncovered on Friday to send bombs on cargo travelling in planes, which sparked a worldwide terrorist alert.

Choudhry, 21, was convicted on three charges after a short trial in which she ordered her defence team not to challenge the prosecution's case because she does not recognise the right of the British court to try her. The Old Bailey jury took just 14 minutes to return unanimous verdicts on the attempted murder charge and two counts of having an offensive weapon.

On 14 May 2010 she stabbed her local MP Stephen Timms twice in the stomach at his constituency surgery in east London. She confessed to the attack to police later that day. The investigation into the attack, initially thought to have resulted from mental illness, was taken over by Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism command after the link to Awlaki was discovered on Choudhry's computer and after she told detectives in interviews that she had watched the extremist's sermons.

Awlaki is the "spiritual leader" of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, whom the US suspect inspired the Muslim soldier who shot dead 13 of his colleagues in 2009 at Fort Hood, Texas.

The court heard Choudhry wanted to stab Timms to death as "punishment" for voting for the Iraq war. Interviewed by detectives hours after the attack Choudhry said she was going to keep stabbing Timms until either he was dead or she was stopped: "I was hoping to get revenge for the people of Iraq." A list of other politicians was found in her possession and she had researched voting records on Iraq.

Sir David Omand, the government's former security intelligence co-ordinator, has said the government was warned before the 2003 war that radicalisation among Muslims in the UK would increase if Britain joined the invasion.

Speaking after the verdict, the Metropolitan police's deputy assistant commissioner, Stuart Osborne, said: "Stephen Timms … was extremely fortunate not to have been killed. MPs are entitled to fulfil their role without fear of violence. There can never be any justification for anyone carrying out such an attack."

Choudhry had dropped out of her studies in English and communications at King's College London early in 2010. She had won academic prizes and was tipped for a first class degree. It is understood that examination of her computer shows Choudhry downloaded the Islamist material late in 2009.

Despite Awaki being suspected of being a terrorist mastermind and on a CIA list to be killed, videos of his sermons remain freely available on the internet.

Today Choudhry will be sentenced and will appear via videolink from prison. The maximum sentence for attempted murder is life.

Simon Clements, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: "She admitted without hesitation that her intention was to end her victim's life, but has succeeded only in ruining her own."

Timms, Labour MP for East Ham, made a full recovery after the attack.