With the horrendous tragedy of the Manchester attack at an Ariana Grande concert that took 22 lives and left dozens more injured still fresh in the world’s mind, a London teenager has been made an example of after pleading guilty to a charge of “preparation of terrorist acts”, the NME reports.
19-year-old Haroon Syed has been jailed for life, with a minimum of 16 and a half years to serve, after authorities found that he had researched where to buy explosive materials online, as well as which areas of the city would be busiest.
While he was believed to have considered Buckingham Palace and the busy shopping strip of Oxford Street, he was also examining the possibility of an attack on Elton John’s 2016 Hyde Park concert, which occurred on the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
A task force thankfully baited Syed with fake contacts online, leading him to divulge his plans through social media and via mobile phone, telling them he intended to do “some damage with [a] machine gun” followed by an act of “martyrdom”.
While the teen denounced his beliefs following his arrest and condemned the recent terror attack in London, he’ll be serving at least a decade and a half behind bars for what QC Mark Summers described as a “crude, ill-thought-out” plot.
