Safiyya Amira Shaikh, 37, from Hayes, west London, has been sentenced to life in prison on Friday, July 3rd, after she admitted to planning terrorist acts and disseminating publications that encouraged people to launch terrorist attacks.
Shaikh, a Muslim convert born Michelle Ramsden, had reportedly visited St Paul’s in central London a number of times to scan the security precautions to find a place to leave a bomb. Her initial plan was to carry out an attack at Christmas but she put it back to Easter.
She was caught when two undercover officers who posed as fellow extremists and received orders from her to build bombs to be put under the cathedral's dome.
Mother to a daughter, Shaikh appeared to pay no regard to her family, Alison Morgan QC, prosecutor told the court. She reportedly ran a social media channel called GreenB1rds on the encrypted message service Telegram, which spread pro-Isis propaganda and called for attacks in the UK and overseas, specifically on churches. Delivering the sentence, the judge acknowledged that Shaikh had suffered from mental health issues, but there were a number of aggravating criminal factors that called for a heavy prison sentence. Shaikh had reportedly been in contact with the convicted British jihadist, Anjem Choudary, and had also listened to the recorded online lectures of Anwar Al-Awlaki, the Yemeni militant who was killed by a US drone strike.
