Leytonstone Tube attack: Isil-inspired knifeman jailed for life after targeting strangers at Underground station

From the Telegraph

A schizophrenic knifeman who tried to behead a musician during an Islamic State-inspired rampage at a Tube station has been sentenced to life in prison.

Somali-born Muhiddin Mire, 30, targeted strangers at random in the ticket hall at Leytonstone Underground station in east London on December 5 last year. Mire will serve a minimum of eight and a half years before being considered for parole, and will start his sentence at Broadmoor secure hospital.

Sentencing him at the Old Bailey, Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC, Recorder of London, said that while he accepted Mire was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the offence, he was also of the opinion he had been motivated by events in Syria.

He continued: “In other words, because Muslims were being bombed in Syria, he was going to attack civilians here. That was designed to intimidate a section of the public, and it was to advance an extreme cause.”

Judge Hilliard added that Mire’s “brazen” actions were carried out in order to advance a “religious and extremist cause”. “This was an attempt to to kill an innocent member of the public for ideological reasons by cutting his throat in plain sight for maximum impact,” he said.

Flanked by several dock officers and wearing a blue tracksuit top, Mire stared ahead as he was sentenced.