Men plotted to kill Muslim "like a pig": UK court

Meant as warning to British Muslim servicemen

LONDON (AFP)

An Islamist extremist hatched a plot to kidnap a British Muslim soldier on a night out in central England and behead him "like a pig" in a lock-up garage, a court heard Tuesday.

Parviz Khan, who has pleaded guilty with three other men to charges linked to the plan, then intended to release footage of the killing on the Internet, Leicester Crown Court, in east central England, was told.

Prosecutor Nigel Rumfitt gave details of the plot to the jury as he opened the case against two other men, who have denied offences linked to the conspiracy.

Khan, 37, pleaded guilty earlier this month to the plot to kidnap and murder the soldier and take part in sending equipment to militants operating on Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, he said.

Plot

Rumfitt said of the plot that Khan hoped to kidnap a Muslim serviceman from the entertainment district in the city of Birmingham, west central England, with the help of drug dealers.

"He would be taken to a lock-up garage and there he would be murdered by having his head cut off like a pig," he said.

"This atrocity would be filmed... and the film released to cause panic and fear within the British armed forces and the wider public."

The lawyer said Khan, from Birmingham, was at the heart of a "terrorist cell" in the city and sent items to extremists in Pakistan disguised as aid for earthquake victims, medicine or food.

They included computer hard drives, range-finders, night vision and other electronic equipment, sleeping bags, walkie-talkies and waterproof map holders.

"The prosecution say[s] that Parviz Khan is a fanatic. He is a man who has the most violent and extreme views," Rumfitt told the jury.

"He was enraged by the idea that there were Muslim soldiers in the British army, some of them Muslims from The Gambia in west Africa."

Accomplices

A 30-year-old man, Basiru Gassama, has admitted knowing about the plot but not telling anyone about it, while two others, Mohammed Irfan, 31, and Hamid Elasmar, 44, pleaded guilty to helping Khan supply the equipment.

Their admissions could not be reported until Tuesday on the direction of the trial judge.

The jury was told that Khan wanted Gassama, a Gambian national living in Birmingham, to help identify a potential target but he failed to find one and the plan "lay dormant" after July 2006.

But Khan was determined and revived his interest in the plot in November 2006, Rumfitt added. Britain's security services bugged his house, recording "highly incriminating and damaging comments," he said.

The two men who are on trial are Amjad Mahmood, 32, and Zahoor Iqbal, 30. Both have pleaded not guilty to helping Khan supply equipment to Pakistan.

Mahmood has pleaded not guilty to knowing about the plot but failing to disclose the information.

Iqbal, 30, has denied possessing a document or record "likely to be useful to a terrorist", namely a computer disc called "Encyclopedia Jihad".

All the defendants were arrested in dawn raids in Birmingham last January.