At the site of the murder, Mujahid Abu Hamza (Michael Adebolajo) said: “But we are forced by the Qur’an, in Sura At-Tawba, through many ayah in the Qu’ran, we must fight them as they fight us.” More recently, he has said of the murder: “I obeyed Allah and that is the end of the story for me….I believe the best way to conduct any act is to copy Mohammed.” If Britain were remotely a sane society at this point, such statements would trigger a searching public discussion of the teachings of Islam and the need for Muslims in Britain and elsewhere in the West to reject the elements of Islamic law and Islamic teaching that conflict with otherwise universally held principles of human rights. Instead, judges like this Whittam and even Prime Minister Cameron say that the crime had nothing to do with Islam — and why? Because they really, really don’t want it to.
“Lee Rigby trial: Judge says ‘being a soldier of Allah is not a defence,'” from the Daily Star, December 17:
BEING a “soldier of Allah” is no defence for the murder of Lee Rigby, a judge ruled today.
And prosecutor Richard Whittam QC told jurors at the Old Bailey Adebolajo and Adebowale”˜s “barbarous” actions could only amount to murder.
Judge Mr Justice Sweeney gave a ruling there was nothing in the defendants’ argument that they were acting as “soldiers of Allah” that could justify the killing.
He told the jury: “It is alleged that the defendants murdered Lee Rigby.
“I have ruled that nothing said by the first defendant (Adebolajo) and in particular his evidence that he was a soldier of Allah and was justified in doing what he did amounts in law to a defence to this count (murder) so nothing that he has said amounts in law to a defence to murder.”
In his closing speech Mr Whittam said: “The actions of these two men, acting together as they did, crashing their car and breaking Lee Rigby’s back, and then killing him is indefensible in law in this country.”
Lee Rigby was killed on May 22 this year in a shock attack.
Mr Whittam added: “Shortly before 2.30pm in Artillery Place in Woolwich Lee Rigby was slain by Michael Adebolajo who struck his neck with a sharp instrument…and it was sawed until his head almost became decapitated.
“That emotive description is based on how the first defendant described his actions in interview.
“These comments are not excitement or exaggeration, as he accused me of. That is how he viewed his actions on that day.
“It will be for you to decide the evidence in this case and to consider whether, despite his acceptance that both he and his co-defendant Michael Adebowale are responsible for killing Lee Rigby, it is murder.”
The prosecutor claimed it was clear what the defendants’ intention was when they bought knives from Argos the day before the killing, which were later used in the attack.
The next day Adebolajo picked Adebowale up in what was ‘clearly a joint plan,’ jurors were told. The court heard Lee Rigby, 25, arrived at Woolwich Arsenal station at 2.10pm on his way back to his barracks.
He is captured on CCTV wearing a Help For Heroes hoodie crossing the road in Artillery Place eight minutes later.
The defendants’ Vauxhall Tigra is then seen to crash at a speed of 40mph into the soldier, breaking his back and leaving him helpless on the ground.
Witnesses described the defendants committing the “frenzied attack”
Rigby was then dragged into the street. His attackers, who also had a gun, waited until armed police arrived so, they say, they could be killed in an act of martyrdom.
But the prosecutor warned jurors “not to be seduced” by suicide being their sole intention.
Mr Whittam reminded the jury of eight women and four men that it was not Islam that was on trial.
“What is required, particularly in this case, is cool logic and sound common sense,” he said….
Apparently not.