Would-be suicide bomber in UK sentenced to prison

[David]

AP


LONDON – A would-be suicide bomber who tried to detonate a nail bomb in a restaurant but injured only himself was sentenced Friday to at least 18 years in prison.

Nicky Reilly, a 22-year-old convert to Islam, was given a life sentence with a minimum term of 18 years.

Reilly admitted charges of attempted murder and preparing a terrorist attack at the Giraffe restaurant in Exeter in southwestern England on May 22 of last year.

"The offense of attempted murder is aggravated by the fact that it was long-planned, that it had multiple intended victims and was intended to terrorize the population of this country," Justice David Calvert-Smith said.

"It was sheer luck or chance that it did not succeed in its objectives."

Reilly, of Plymouth, England, was seriously injured when a device exploded in his hands while he was in a toilet at the restaurant. No one else was injured.

Jurors were told that Reilly had learning difficulties and was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism. People with this condition have difficulties in social interaction.

His mother, concerned about his obsessive behavior and tantrums, had taken him to a psychiatrist when he was 9. He took an overdose when he was 16, and was once hospitalized after stabbing himself in the leg.

Calvert-Smith said he accepted that Reilly's attempt was unsophisticated.

"Unfortunately those who attempt to commit suicide and in doing so murder other people are almost invariably unsophisticated in many aspects," the judge said.

Reilly's mother, Kim, wept as her son was sentenced in London's Central Criminal Court.

Reilly embraced Islam between 2002 and 2003 and called himself Mohammad Rashid Saeed Alim.

Witnesses said he downloaded videos on bomb-making and martyrdom, encourage by two people with Arabic names in an Internet chat room.

In the suicide note he left in his bedroom, Reilly said he was motivated by the "disgusting" behavior of British people and by the "war on Islam."

His lawyer, Kerim Fuad, described Reilly as "the least cunning person ever to have come before this court for this type of offense."

Reilly was not part of a larger conspiracy and had no financial support for his plan, the lawyer said.

"Had his poor unsuspecting mother not handed him the 10-pound note that she thought was for him to purchase a CD that morning, he would simply not have had enough money for the bus fare to Exeter," Fuad said.