Headline

Teen Terrorist Jailed For Life Over Plot To Attack Soldiers, Police

Published

2 years ago

June 2, 2023

A teenage Islamic State fanatic has been jailed for life for plotting a terror attack on British police officers and soldiers after being radicalised online during the pandemic.

Muslim convert, Matthew King, 19, expressed a desire to kill military personnel as he prepared to stake out a British Army barracks in Stratford, east London.

He discussed his plans and shared a “gory fantasy” with an online girlfriend with whom he struck up an adolescent flirtation, the Old Bailey heard.

His desires to launch an attack in Britain or travel to Syria to join the so-called Islamic State were thwarted when his mother reported him to the Prevent counter-terrorism programme.

Authorities were also tipped off through an anti-terrorist hotline after he posted a video on a WhatsApp group on April 13 last year.

While in custody, King had made violent threats to “behead an imam” and “kill and chop up staff,” the court was told.

In January, King, from Wickford in Essex, pleaded guilty to the preparation of terrorist acts between December 22, 2021 and May 17, 2022.

On Friday, he was handed a discretionary life sentence with a minimum term of six years in the first terrorism sentencing in England and Wales to be televised.

Judge Mark Lucraft KC praised King’s mother, saying, “She took the very bold step of alerting when she had concerns for her son. That cannot have been an easy thing to do in the first place and in my view, she absolutely did the right thing.”

Lucraft disclosed that King is a dangerous offender who carries a risk of future harm to the public, despite claims by his barrister that the defendant is on the path to de-radicalisation.

He told King, “I note that it would have been much easier for you to attack a police officer in the street than it would be for you to join ISIS in Syria and so, of the two terrorist acts you intended to carry out, the former was more likely than the latter on the evidence.”

Setting out aggravating factors, the judge said King was “motivated by hostility towards non-believers”, was in contact with other extremists, used aliases to hide his identity, and failed to heed warnings from his family and others in mosques.

In mitigation, Hossein Zahir KC said King is “immature” and the prospect that he would carry out either of his terrorist plans is “remote.”

The defence barrister argued that, despite incidents of “offensive and abusive” behaviour in custody, King is “slowly and steadily” disengaging from the excesses of extremism.

After the sentencing, Scotland Yard described King as a “committed, self-initiated terrorist” who “self-radicalised” online during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Commander Dominic Murphy, who leads the Met’s counter-terrorism command, said, “We had seen an escalation in Matthew King’s behaviour, in his reconnaissance, in his online activity.

“I genuinely believe this was an imminent terrorist attack. Without the public’s help and without the efficient investigation of my officers, officers from the eastern region and members of the intelligence community, we wouldn’t have been able to disrupt what, for me, was an imminent attack.”

Setting out the facts at a previous hearing, prosecutor Paul Jarvis had described how King had developed an “entrenched Islamist extremist mindset.”

In his early teens, King “dabbled with drugs” and was expelled from school after becoming aggressive, eventually leaving education entirely at the age of 16.

Around 2020, he became interested in Islam, began to attend mosques and watched Muslim videos on YouTube.

By May 2021, his family noticed he had become more extreme and his mother became concerned he was watching material online promoting hatred, Mr Jarvis said.

He had developed a friendship with a girl, identified in court only as ‘Miss A,” whom he met online.

He spoke of wanting to get his hands on an American or British Marine and told the girl, “I just wanna die a martyr.”

When Miss A appeared to support and encourage him, King responded, “I guess jihadi love is powerful. I just want to kill people.”

In further graphic chat, Miss A talked about torturing, mutilating and beheading a soldier and then cutting up the body parts.

As part of his terror attack planning, King set up an online account with the retailer Knife Warehouse, searched for ISIS tactical training videos in the use of knives and bought “tactical gloves” and goggles.

On one occasion, he went into his sister’s bedroom dressed in his combat outfit and asked if she liked his clothes.

King made videos as he checked out potential targets, including Stratford Army barracks, police officers outside Stratford Magistrates’ Court, and the railway station.

Some of his hostile reconnaissance videos were overlaid with nasheeds—Islamic chants—and he posted on Snapchat, “Target acquired.”

Meanwhile, King had searched the internet for terrorist killers, including the Manchester Arena bomber and Jihadi John.

While planning acts of terrorism in Britain, King had also expressed a desire to join the Islamic State in Syria and sought advice on a WhatsApp group about the best way to get there.

Authorities were alerted after King posted on WhatsApp an image of a male holding a knife with the words, “Those who said that there is no jihad and no battle. They are lying!”

King was arrested at his home on May 18 of last year by officers from the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command.

He described his formal Islamic name as “Abdul Kalashnikov” and told police, “The only thing that is black and white is the sharia, the law of Allah.”

King’s barrister told the court that more recent conversations with his supportive family showed signs that the defendant was turning away from his radical beliefs.

And in a prison phone call, King told his mother, “I’m not extreme anymore.”

NAN

Headline

Kimmel’s Suspension: Obama Slams Trump For ‘Dangerous’ Attack On Free Speech

Published

2 hours ago

September 19, 2025

Editor

Former United States President Barack Obama has condemned the suspension of the late-night show hosted by Jimmy Kimmel following remarks he made about slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

In a post on X on Thursday, Obama described the suspension of the show as a dangerous attack on free speech led by President Donald Trump.

He wrote, “After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.

“This is precisely the kind of government coercion that the First Amendment was designed to prevent — and media companies need to start standing up rather than capitulating to it.”

Obama’s comments came after ABC, owned by Walt Disney, announced on Wednesday that Jimmy Kimmel Live had been suspended indefinitely.

The decision followed threats of a federal investigation into Kimmel’s remarks about conservative activist Charlie Kirk, a close Trump ally who was shot and killed on September 10 while debating students at a Utah university.

During Monday’s broadcast, Kimmel accused Kirk’s supporters of using his assassination to “score political points.” At least one local ABC affiliate had already announced plans to stop airing the program before the network’s decision.

The suspension has sparked backlash from free speech advocates, who argue that the administration’s actions amount to political censorship.

Headline

Ghana To Take More West African Deportees From US

Published

3 hours ago

September 19, 2025

Editor

Ghana will receive another 40 West Africans deported from the United States in the coming days, Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa said, after the government revealed last week a deal had been struck with Washington.

Deporting people to third countries instead of their home nations has been a hallmark of US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants, notably by sending hundreds to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

Ghana President John Mahama announced last week that 14 deportees from the region had been sent to the country, sparking questions over their current whereabouts and pushback from the political opposition.

“On humanitarian grounds, pan-African solidarity, let us accept our fellow West Africans. And let’s make the point that Ghana is your home,” Ablakwa told Ghanaian broadcaster Channel1 TV late Wednesday.

He said the deportees, who are vetted before arrival, will be allowed to remain in Ghana temporarily, per regional visa-free travel rules, or return to their home countries.

The Ghanaian government previously said that many of the deported west Africans had already returned to their home countries — though lawyers in the United States say at least some of them are being held in military detention in Ghana in “cruel conditions”.

Five Nigerians and Gambians deported to Ghana were granted protection from deportation by immigration authorities in the United States, their lawyers said in a Tuesday statement.

If they continue on to their countries of origin, they risk “torture, persecution or death”, said Lee Gelernt, of the American Civil Liberties Union.

In an unprecedented move, Trump has overseen the deportation of hundreds of people to Panama, including some who were sent away before they could have their asylum applications processed.

Hundreds have also been sent to El Salvador, with the US administration invoking an 18th-century law to remove people it has accused of being Venezuelan gang members.

Some were sent despite US judges ordering the planes carrying them to turn around.

The deportation agreement with Ghana comes as Washington has hiked tariffs on Ghanaian goods and restricted visas issued to its nationals.

Headline

Putin Has ‘Let Me Down’, Trump Laments As UK State Visit Ends

Published

3 hours ago

September 19, 2025

Editor

Donald Trump warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin had “really let me down” as he met Prime Minister Keir Starmer for wide-ranging talks on Thursday, the final day of the US president’s historic UK state visit.

A day after King Charles III treated Trump to royal pageantry at Windsor Castle, the Republican flew to Starmer’s Chequers country residence for talks on thorny issues, including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

Starmer has positioned himself as a bridge between Trump and European allies, particularly on the war in Ukraine, in a bid to secure more commitments for Kyiv from the US leader.

And his calls, repeated again on Thursday, for more international pressure on Putin appear to be gaining more traction with Trump, who slammed the Russian leader for continuing the war despite his efforts to stop the fighting.

Trump told a post-talks press conference that he had thought the Ukraine conflict would be the “easiest” to end “because of my relationship with President Putin, but he’s let me down. He’s really let me down.”

He urged European nations to stop buying Russian oil, saying that “if the price of oil comes down, Putin’s going to drop out of that war.”

– ‘Unbreakable bond’ –

Starmer’s warm tone with the 79-year-old Trump has won some leniency in the president’s tariff war, with the British leader saying Thursday the trade deal the two countries signed in May was the first by the US and also “the best”.

But Trump said that the pair had “one of our few disagreements” about the UK’s plan to recognise a Palestinian state.

The US leader also offered strong thoughts on illegal migration in the UK, revealing that “I told the Prime Minister I would stop it”, even if it meant calling in the military.

Earlier in the day, Trump hailed America’s “unbreakable bond” with Britain as he and Starmer signed a huge tech deal, boosting ties in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and nuclear energy.

At the signing ceremony attended by a host of US tech CEOs, Labour leader Starmer said he and Republican Trump were “leaders who genuinely like each other.”

The deal comes on the back of pledges of £150 billion ($205 billion) of investment into the UK from US giants including Microsoft, Google and Blackstone.

Trump had earlier said goodbye to King Charles at Windsor, calling him a “great gentleman and a great king” as he left the castle heading to Chequers.

Appealing to Trump’s admiration for British wartime leader Winston Churchill, Starmer led the US president on a tour of Churchill artifacts at Chequers.

Starmer is facing political troubles at home after sacking his ambassador to Washington, Peter Mandelson, over his connections to disgraced late financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Sex offender Epstein has also haunted Trump over recent weeks, with further revelations about the pair’s relationship in the 1990s and early 2000s.

– ‘Highest honours’ –

Having negotiated the potentially perilous press conference relatively unscathed, Starmer can claim some justification for granting Trump an unprecedented second state visit, with investment deals and deepening alignment on Ukraine to show for the diplomatic effort.

Trump was Wednesday lavished with the full pomp and circumstance of the British state — the second time it has done so, after his first visit in 2019.

“This is truly one of the highest honours of my life,” Trump said at the state banquet.

The king meanwhile hailed Trump’s peace efforts and support of Ukraine, after a day featuring gun salutes, soldiers on horseback, and bagpipes, all designed to appeal to the US president’s fascination with royalty.

But he also stressed to Trump the need to protect the environment for “our children, grandchildren, and those who come after them”.

Melania Trump remained in Windsor on Thursday morning, where she met scouts with Princess Catherine, and viewed Queen Mary’s Doll’s House with Queen Camilla.

The US first lady’s husband was kept far from the British public, with an estimated 5,000 people marching through central London Wednesday to protest against his visit.

Trump was due to return to Washington later Thursday.