LONDON — Two Muslim extremists who butchered a young British soldier on a busy London street in full view of stunned passers-by were sentenced Wednesday to long prison terms, including life without parole for the leader of the attack.
A judge harshly denounced the men for planning and carrying out a frenzied public “bloodbath” for maximum effect, saying that Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale’s “sickening and pitiful conduct” warranted severe punishment.
Adebolajo, 29, is to spend the rest of his life behind bars. Adebowale, 22, was given a life sentence with the possibility of parole, but he cannot apply for early release before serving a minimum of 45 years.
Their horrific assault in May on 25-year-old Lee Rigby in southeast London was the first fatal Islamic terrorist incident in Britain since suicide bombers aboard London’s transport system killed 52 people in 2005.
The two men were not present in the courtroom when Justice Nigel Sweeney handed down their sentences, having been hustled out after disrupting proceedings by shouting and engaging in a brief scuffle with bailiffs.
The two were convicted of murder in December. Although sentencing typically takes place soon after a verdict is returned, it was postponed in this case until an appeals court could rule on the legality in Britain of locking up criminals for life without possibility of parole. A decision handed down last week affirmed the applicability of unmitigated penalties for especially heinous crimes.
Sue Hemming of the Crown Prosecution Service, who specializes in terrorist cases, called Rigby’s killing “one of the most appalling terrorist murders” she had ever encountered.
Adebolajo was caught on videotape after the attack holding up a bloody cleaver that he had used to try to decapitate Rigby, a gunner and drummer with the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. Looking into a bystander’s camera, he described the soldier’s death as “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” — justified retribution for British participation in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — and shouted at bystanders: “You people will never be safe!”
The savagery of the assault, and Adebolajo’s widely broadcast rantings, stoked fears of copycat attacks by “lone wolves” inspired by radical Islam but unaffiliated with known extremist groups or terror cells. Prime Minister David Cameron launched a task force to study whether universities, Muslim charitable organizations, prisons and the Internet had become a “conveyor belt” of Islamist radicalization.
Lee Rigby, killed on street with cleaver.
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