Friend of Downing Street bomb plotter convicted of trying to join Isis

Terror plotter recorded sponsorship video to help friend join Isis abroad after his planned attack

A friend of a man who plotted to blow up Downing Street and behead the prime minister has been convicted for trying to become an Isis fighter.

Mohammad Aqib Imran, 22, was planning to join the terrorist group in Libya when he unwittingly asked an undercover spy to help him obtain a fake passport.

His friend Naa’imur Zakariyah Rahman recorded a sponsorship video the pair hoped would gain militants’ trust after he carried out a terror attack in London.

The footage showed Rahman, who planned to die in his assault on Downing Street, calling Imran his “brother in Islam” and wishing him “great success”.

Rahman referred to his friend using his jihadi war name “Abu Sikkeen”, which was the name of online accounts used to view Isis propaganda and engage with security service roleplayers.

The pair befriended each other online through their shared terrorist ideology and met in London and Birmingham, but police intervened before either man could achieve their bloody aims.

Alexis Boon, acting commander for the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command, said: “The idea was that Rahman would kill the prime minister and Imran would subsequently have a video from a martyr recommending he be accepted into the terrorist organisation. Such a video would have held weight with Isis.

“Of course, this was never going to happen because MI5 and the Counter Terrorism Command had been investigating the pair for some time and in fact a covert police officer had been meeting with Rahman to establish how serious his plans were.”

Imran, a 22-year-old student from Birmingham, used encrypted messaging apps to discuss his aspirations to mount an “operation” in the UK before settling on fighting for Isis abroad.

With much of the group’s former territories in Iraq and Syria retaken, he focused on Libya – where Isis has held ground in the ongoing civil war – as his destination.

Mohammad Aqib Imran, 22, was convicted of preparing terrorist acts for trying to join Isis in Libya (Metropolitan Police)

In autumn 2017, he told an online contact that his mother had taken away his passport because she was concerned, but that he had £3,000 and could pay for a fake or stolen document.

The contact, “Abu Mohammed”, was a security service roleplayer posing as an Isis member and claiming to help Imran achieve his goal.

“I just don’t trust the kuffar who are monitoring everything,” Imran told the spy over Surespot messenger. “I’m a very paranoid person akhi (brother)”.

Imran said his study for a certificate in health and social care was merely “deception” for his true aim to become a jihadi, voicing his hatred for the UK and increasingly urgent wishes to reach Isis’s so-called caliphate.

“I wanna destroy these kuffar (disbelievers),” Imran told the roleplayer. “I wanna harm them as they have harmed us.”

He discussed his plan with Rahman as he mounted the Downing Street plot, and the pair met twice while under surveillance.

Rahman was arrested while walking down a London street with a fake suicide vest and pressure cooker bomb, which had been supplied by undercover agents, on 28 November 2017. Imran was arrested little over an hour afterwards.

Police found he had collected Islamist propaganda and Isis documents on his electronic devices, including a Kindle.

Imran, of Ombersley Road in Sparkbrook, was convicted of collection of information useful to terrorists in a July trial alongside Rahman.

The jury was unable to reach a verdict on engaging in conduct in preparation of terrorist acts, which related to Imran’s plan to travel to join Isis, but he was found guilty on Thursday following a retrial.

Mr Boon said: “Our police investigation has stopped Imran from joining Isis on the ground in Libya, where his subsequent actions could have assisted the terrorist organisation to further their aims.”

Rahman previously pleaded guilty to engaging in conduct in assisting the preparation of terrorist acts, for the sponsorship video he filmed for Imran.

Jailing Rahman in August, Mr Justice Haddon-Cave said played a “key role” in encouraging Imran to journey to Libya and may have facilitated the death of innocent people.

Imran will be sentenced at the Old Bailey on 25 January.