A former public schoolboy was jailed today for plotting to blow himself up using his own suicide vest and home-made explosives.
Muslim convert Isa Ibrahim (20), was convicted of making an explosive with intent to endanger life or cause serious injury to property in the UK in April 2008.
He was also found guilty of a charge of preparing terrorist acts by purchasing material to make an explosive, making that explosive, buying material to detonate the explosive, carrying out “reconnaissance” before the act and “making an improvised suicide vest in which to then detonate an explosive substance”.
He was given an indeterminate sentence at Winchester Crown Court and told he should serve a minimum of 10 years.
“You were, in my judgment, a lonely and angry young person at the time of these events, with a craving for attention,” said Mr Justice Butterfield.
Hospital consultant’s son Ibrahim, from Comb Paddock, Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol, had denied both charges but pleaded guilty to a third charge of making an explosive substance.
He was convicted today by a jury of four women and eight men on the sixth day of deliberations.
When Ibrahim was arrested, a quantity of home-made high explosive HMTD, the same substance used in the July 7th attacks, was found in a container in the fridge of his home.
Also found in his one-bedroom flat was an electrical circuit capable of detonating the explosive at short range and a half-made suicide vest.
The prosecution said the heroin and crack addict, who had been expelled from several schools, was preparing to carry out a terrorist attack on the Broadmead shopping centre in Bristol.
The jury heard that Ibrahim became increasingly radicalised after converting to Islam and consequently changing his name from Andrew Philip Michael Ibrahim.
He spent several months researching Islamic fundamentalism on the internet, including the motivation behind suicide attacks.
He also used the internet to find instructions on how to make explosives from household products.
The jury was told that he had described the UK as a “dirty toilet” and he believed the 9/11 attacks were a justifiable response to US and UK aggression towards Muslims.
But Ibrahim told the jury he just wanted to set the vest off and film it for the website You Tube and that he thought suicide bombing was wrong both morally and according to Islam.
He got involved in making explosives to be controversial and to fill a void in his life because he was lonely and the lost sheep of his family, he claimed.
His defence counsel David Spens QC said Ibrahim’s unhealthy interest in explosives started at an early age but he had no intention of blowing either himself or anyone else up.
Mr Justice Butterfield told Ibrahim that, even though he had not made a detonation device or completed the suicide vest, “your preparation to inflict an atrocity on the innocent civilians of Bristol were advanced”.
“You are a dangerous young man, well capable of acting on the views you held in the spring of 2008,” said the judge.
He added that he considered Ibrahim to be a “continuing danger” to the public but gave a substantial discount on the minimum term imposed due to the fact that he had acted alone and because of his age.
“You were, in my judgment, a lonely and angry young person at the time of these events, with a craving for attention,” said the judge.
Flanked by four prison officers, Ibrahim showed no emotion as the jury delivered its majority verdict.
The jurors found him guilty of making an explosive substance with intent by a majority of 11 to 1 and the preparation of terrorist acts by a majority of 10 to 2.
Ibrahim’s father, Nassif, mother, Victoria, and brother, Peter, attended the court every day and sat in the public gallery as the jury filed in.
His mother fled the court in tears as the sentence was passed.
PA