{UAH} Leytonstone knife attacker sentenced to life

Leytonstone knife attacker sentenced to life

Muhiddin Mire, who has a severe mental health disorder, will serve a
minimum of eight and a half years

A mentally ill taxi driver who cut the throat of a stranger at a
London tube station has been given a life sentence with a minimum term
of eight and a half years after a judge concluded the attacker was
motivated by Islamic extremism.

Muhiddin Mire, 30, who has paranoid schizophrenia, told police the
rampage in December 2015 was an act of revenge for coalition
airstrikes in Syria, which the UK government had voted to support
three days previously.

Judge Nicholas Hilliard, the recorder of London, told Mire he would be
immediately transferred to Broadmoor, the high-security psychiatric
hospital in Berkshire.


The type of sentence handed down to Mire means that if he is found to
be free of symptoms and subject to review he could be transferred to
prison to serve the remainder of the term.


Hilliard said: "This was an attempt to kill an innocent member of the
public for ideological reasons by cutting his throat in plain sight
for maximum impact."

Mire, who had downloaded Islamic State propaganda before the attack,
was convicted in June of attempted murder for stabbing 56-year-old
Lyle Zimmerman and threatening four other travellers at Leytonstone
station, east London.

But doctors giving evidence to the hearing conflicted over whether
Mire's mental illness was the sole reason for the attack.


Dr Shaun Bhattacharjee, a Broadmoor forensic psychiatrist, told the
court Mire's interest in extremism was a symptom of his mental
disorder. But Dr Philip Joseph told the judge it was possible for
Mire's obsession with Islamic terrorism to be separate from the
illness.


Ultimately, Hilliard sided with Joseph's argument. "What the defendant
was intent upon was designed to intimidate a section of the public
that were there to witness what he was doing. This was not carried out
in secret but very brazenly indeed. It was carried out to advance a
religious or ideological cause, namely Islamic extremism."

Hilliard said Mire's interaction with commuters in the tube station
during the attack was evidence of his awareness of what was going on
around him.

It was revealed during an earlier hearing that Mire was sectioned in
2006 and released with a prescription for antipsychotic medication
after two weeks in hospital.

He was put in touch with a community mental health team upon his
release but soon lost contact with them and stopped taking the
medication. In the years before the attack, Mire became increasingly
unwell and was probably already exhibiting symptoms of paranoid
schizophrenia.

Among "strange" ideas Mire had was a belief that the former prime
minister Tony Blair was his guardian angel and that he had been
possessed by evil spirits, the court heard.

His paranoid delusions later manifested in a belief that he was under
surveillance by the security services and was being followed.

Bhattacharjee told the court the prevailing culture – in this case a
heightened state of tension over Islamic terrorism – could often
inform schizophrenics' delusions. As an example, Bhattacharjee said in
the 1970s some paranoid schizophrenics experienced delusions related
to the IRA and Irish terrorism.

During the attack, Mire shouted, "This is for my Syrian brothers. I'm
going to spill your blood." But Joseph told the same hearing that this
interest in extremism was separate from his mental illness, not
fuelled by it.


Mire told police in the hours after his arrest that the attack was an
act of vengeance for coalition airstrikes in Syria. On 2 December, the
government voted in favour of extending bombings against Isis targets
in the Middle East to include Syria.

He had images of the soldier Lee Rigby and a British Isis killer on
his phone, along with material linked to the terror group.

The court heard Mire started viewing Isis videos online three years
before the attack.

One person was overheard on mobile phone footage of the incident
shouting at Mire: "You ain't no Muslim, bruv," a rebuke that garnered
much public attention.


After sentencing, Met police commander Dean Haydon, of the
counter-terrorism command, said: "London is a safer place with Mire
behind bars. While Mire was not accused of terrorist offences, it
would appear from comments he made at the time of the attack and the
content he had downloaded on his phone that he may have been inspired
by terrorist propaganda.

"My officers continue to work tirelessly in stopping people getting
drawn into terrorism and violent extremism in all forms as well as
prosecuting, disrupting and deterring extremists, reaching out to
communities and safeguarding the vulnerable.

"We depend on information from the public, who can be our eyes and
ears in our efforts to keep us all safe."

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