Man jailed for plot to kill Iraq war hero
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.
20 men with just a bayonet? Wow.
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. (Thanks to MichaelSavage.com for the heads up.)
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