IS-backing sword attacker hated British queen, court told

A man who attacked police with a Samurai sword outside Buckingham Palace hated Queen Elizabeth II, considering her among the “enemies of Allah”, a London court heard Monday.

Mohiussunnath Chowdhury, 27, who supported terrorism by the Islamic State jihadist group, fought with officers who tried to disarm him after confronting him on August 25 last year, jurors were told.

After his arrest following the incident outside the monarch’s official residence in London, an alleged suicide note to his sister was found.

“Tell everyone that I love them and that they should struggle against the enemies of Allah with their lives and their property,” it read.

“The Queen and her soldiers will all be in the hellfire they go to war with Muslims around the world and kill them without any mercy.

“They are the enemies that Allah tells us to fight.”

Minicab driver Chowdhury, from Luton, northwest of London, denies preparing acts of terrorism, claiming he only wanted to get killed.

Opening the case against Chowdhury, prosecutor Tim Cray told the Old Bailey central criminal court that the defendant swerved through traffic cones outside the palace.

Two officers got out of a marked police van to investigate and saw Chowdhury reach for something which turned out to be a metre-long sword.

“There was a short, desperate struggle with the officers trying to get the sword off the defendant while he is punching at them and they are punching at him,” said Cray.

“The defendant is shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ over and over again so by now the police officers understandably believed they were dealing with a terrorist incident.”

The officers suffered cuts as they disarmed the man, jurors heard.

Cray said that earlier that evening, Chowdhury had sent a suicide note to his sister “expressing hate of the Queen and her soldiers”.

He told jurors: “He was saying to his sister that he intended to get to paradise by becoming a martyr fighting ‘the enemies of Allah’.”

The prosecutor said: “The defendant was largely keeping his interest and support for terrorism by Islamic State away from his family, something he was doing online, largely by himself.

“This interest, this self-radicalisation is something we say he chose for himself.”