Life for Muslim fanatic in soldier kidnap plot who showed son, 5, how to behead British 'infidels'
Last updated at 18:04pm on 18th February 2008
• Khan jailed for life after terror plot
• 'If UK troops had withdrawn, Khan might have abandoned plot'
• Other plotters jailed for up to seven years
Parviz Khan has been jailed for life for plotting to kidnap and behead a British Muslim soldier
A secret bugging device at the home of an Islamic fanatic convicted of a plot to kidnap and behead a British Muslim soldier recorded his attempts to teach his five-year-old son how to perform a beheading, it has been revealed.
Parviz Khan was jailed for life today for his involvement in the plot.
In mitigation, Michael Wolkind QC, defending Khan, told the court that his client's plot had been a "mixture of fanaticism and fantasy".
"His plan might have changed had British foreign policy changed," he said. "He might have withdrawn if the British troops were withdrawn."
Khan boasted to friends that he was waging financial war on the West while "bleeding" a monthly total of £1,669 in benefits from the British taxpayer.
It also emerged last week, in proceedings which could not be reported until today, that Khan wanted to burn the soldier's body and parade his head on a stick.
"This is what they will call you when you terrorise them, they will go crazy," he says in the recording. "They will start searching... London, Birmingham, Newcastle, where are these people?"
His lawyer insisted, however, that Khan would have abandoned the plot if Britain had changed its foreign policy and withdrawn its troops from the Middle East.
Khan was convicted last month of plotting to snatch a British Muslim soldier from the streets and film him being beheaded "like a pig" in a lock-up garage.
Basiru Gassama, 30, of Radstock Avenue, Hodge Hill, Birmingham, pleaded guilty at a previous hearing to a failure to disclose information about the plot.
He was jailed today for two years and will be deported immediately.
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(Clockwise from top left) Mohammed Irfan (four years in jail); Hamid Elasmar (three years and four months); Zahoor Iqbal (seven years), and Basiru Gassama (two years and immediate deportation). They were all sentenced today
Mohammed Irfan, 31, of Asquith Road, Ward End, Birmingham, and Hamid Elasmar, 44, of Bristol Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, both pleaded guilty to engaging in conduct with the intention of assisting in the commission of acts of terrorism - namely helping Khan to supply the equipment.
Irfan was today jailed for four years while Elasmar was jailed for three years and four months.
Zahoor Iqbal, 30, of Elmbridge Road, Perry Barr, Birmingham, was found guilty by the jury at Leicester of the same charge. He was today jailed for seven years.
Khan, 37, built up a terrorist cell in Birmingham and planned to kidnap the soldier before filming his "ghastly" death for release to the media.
A sixth man, Amjad Mahmood, was cleared today of his involvement.
That final judgement, reached this morning, means that shocking new details about the case which could not be released previously have been made public - such as transcripts of the recordings.
Opening the case against Khan last week, prosecutor Nigel Rumfitt QC revealed Khan was recorded by a listening device at his home as he taught his five-year-old son how to carry out a beheading.
In one passage, co-defendant Hamid Elasmar asks a child: "How do you cut their neck?"
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The cell had planned to capture a British soldier by befriending him - and then beheading him
Khan then prompts the youngster, saying: "How do you cut them with a knife? Show me."
The bug cannot record whether the child gives an inaudible demonstration, but Khan says: "Like this. Good."
The recording, made in November 2006, was not the first to reveal how Khan wanted to pass down his extremist views to his three children.
In a conversation with his five-year-old son on May 23, 2006, an overbearing Khan asks him to recite from the Koran, telling him he would hit him with a stick if he made a mistake.
Grabbing the child's toy car off him, he asks the little boy: "Who do you love?".
"I love Sheikh Osama Bin Laden," the child replies.
Khan asks his son if he loves anyone else. The boy replies (extreme Muslim cleric) "Sheikh Abu Hamza" and (Islamic militant) "Sheikh Abdullah Rehman".
Then Khan asks the youngster: "Who do you kill?"
The child replies: "America kill."
Asked who else, the boy responds "Bush I kill" and "Blair kill".
Khan's son, 5, was recorded as saying he wanted to kill Tony Blair and George Bush
Prompted by his father, the five-year-old says he also wants to kill "Kuffar" (an abusive term for a non-Muslim), "Hindu", "Sheedi" (a term for a black man), "Pathan" (a member of an Indian tribe) and "Sharab" (alcohol).
Khan - whose role looking after his 71-year-old mother "earned" him an allowance of £160 a week - was also recorded telling associates the only reason he was living in the UK was to steal the nation's wealth and send it abroad.
"Muslims live here for one reason - to get their wealth and give it to the Muslims," Khan told a friend while being bugged by the security services.
Explaining his remarks, Khan then added: "We shouldn't be living here ... we are going to cut his throat, her throat ...
"Britannia, America ... by living among them we are going to squeeze them financially.
"We are here for a reason... because there is a financial war and we are going to make them bleed financially.
"If we cancel their finance and take it off them and give it to the Muslims, it's a big blessing for us."
Referring to non-believers, Khan then said fellow Muslims should "walk like them, speak like them, but don't be like them."
Khan added: "When you take from the Kafir (a term for non-believers) it makes you feel happy... take from them ... then you know you are a soldier.
"It doesn't mean you need a machine gun - we are all soldiers - either we can be physical soldiers or we can be financial.
"Islam, man ... getting strong and can destroy this Christianity."
Khan was claiming benefits of more than £20,000-a-year during the time he plotted to snatch the serviceman off the streets and decapitate him "like a pig".
Mr Rumfitt told the court Khan was at the hub of a terrorist cell based in Birmingham which had organised four shipments of equipment to terrorists based in Pakistan but operating against coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Mr Rumfitt said of Khan: "He was enraged by the notion that there are Muslim soldiers in the British Army.
"As your Lordship knows, there are many soldiers from many countries who serve with our forces - some of them are Muslims from the Gambia in west Africa.
Khan's son was also taped telling his father he 'loved' Osama bin Laden
"This would be filmed - they would have the soldier's ID to prove who he was and the film would be released through Khan's terrorist network to cause panic and fear with the British armed forces and the wider public."
During sentencing, Mr Justice Henriques said: "It was a plot whose purpose was to undermine democratic government, to demoralise the British Army and to destabilise recruitment, and to cause anguish to the then Prime Minister of the day and the loyal citizens of the country."
A security services probe installed in Khan's home in Foxton Road, Alum Rock, Birmingham, recorded him in November 2006 telling co-defendant Basiru Gassma what he intended to do to the soldier.
Khan was heard to say: "We give the judgement... we'll then cut it (the soldier's head) off like you cut a pig, man
"Then you put it on a stick. Then we throw the body, burn it, send the video to the chacha (a reference to terrorist leaders in Pakistan).
"This is what they call you will terrorise them, they will go crazy. They will start searching... London, Birmingham, Newcastle, where are these people?"
Revealing that the soldier would be befriended before being kidnapped, Khan added: "All I say to you is set it up ... drug dealers they will go with him, one day, they do deal.
"Then the next time you'll take him Broad Street, wine and dine and girl and things. After that they don't get friendly."
Khan then said that on the third occasion the soldier was taken out he would be seized by three or four brothers and given a lift in a car.
"But we don't give 'em a lift, we give him a lift to hell. Game over," Khan added.
"That way nobody know. We've got enough places man. We just hang him up. We've got enough Brothers own garages man. Just bring the thing, the chef style... and let's do it, man.
Amjad Mahmood, a shopkeeper, was today cleared of any involvement in the plot.
He told the court he did not believe his friend intended to carry out his plot.
The father-of-three said had not taken seriously a claim by Khan that he had found "lads" who were ready to snatch the Muslim serviceman off the street at knifepoint.
Mahmood also said he had "no idea" that the Islamic fanatic was an active terrorist.