Manchester, England. Two men were jailed on Friday after being convicted of plotting to kill hundreds in an Islamic State-inspired attack targeting the Jewish community in England, prosecutors said. Prosecutors said the plan could have been deadlier than December’s mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach.
Convictions and sentencing
Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, were convicted after a trial at Preston Crown Court, which began a week after an unrelated deadly attack on a synagogue in Manchester, in northwest England.
Judge Mark Wall sentenced Saadaoui to a minimum term of 37 years and Hussein to a minimum term of 26 years, telling them: “You were very close to being ready to carry out this plan.”
Hussein refused to attend his sentencing, having refused to attend most of his trial. Wall said this reflected Hussein’s cowardice, describing him as “brave enough to plan to threaten an unarmed group with an AK-47 but not sufficiently courageous to face up to what he did”.
Prosecutors’ account of the planned attack
Prosecutors said the pair were Islamist extremists who wanted to use automatic firearms to kill as many Jews as they could in an attack in Manchester.
They were found guilty little more than a week after a mass shooting at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach in which 15 people were killed.
Prosecutor Harpreet Sandhu said that, had Saadaoui and Hussein carried out their plan, it “could have been very much more serious” than the attacks in Australia and Manchester.
Weapons and ammunition allegations
Sandhu told jurors that Saadaoui had arranged for two assault rifles, an automatic pistol and almost 200 rounds of ammunition to be smuggled into Britain through the port of Dover when he was arrested in May 2024.
Sandhu added that Saadaoui planned to obtain two more rifles and another pistol, and to collect at least 900 rounds of ammunition.
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