Yoruba Muslim Terrorists in Britain jailed for life

Michael Adebolajo has been given a whole-life term and Michael Adebowale has been jailed for a minimum of 45 years for murdering Fusilier Lee Rigby.

Adebolajo, 29, and Adebowale, 22, drove into Fusilier Rigby with a car before hacking him to death in Woolwich, south-east London, in May last year.

The judge, Mr Justice Sweeney, said Adebolajo's case was one of those "rare cases" warranting a whole-life term.

The pair were absent during sentencing after a scuffle in the dock.

As Mr Justice Sweeney began to sentence the men they started shouting and scuffling with court security guards. They had to be forced to the ground and were removed from court.

Sentencing the killers in their absence, the judge said they had been convicted on "overwhelming" evidence of the "barbaric" murder of Fusilier Rigby.

Adebolajo was the leader of the "joint enterprise", the judge said, but Adebowale played his part "enthusiastically".

Mr Justice Sweeney said the pair carried out the murder "in a way that would generate maximum media coverage".

"He had done absolutely nothing to deserve what you did to him", the judge said. The pair created "a bloodbath", he went on.

"You both gloried in what you had done", said the judge.

"Your sickening and pitiful conduct was in stark contrast to the women at the scene who tended to Lee Rigby's body and challenged what you had done."

Adebolajo and Adebowale faced whole-life jail terms after a Court of Appeal ruling last week upheld judges' right to jail the most serious offenders in England and Wales for the rest of their lives.

However, counsel for Adebolajo, David Gottlieb, warned an indeterminate sentence would "create a martyr".

Mr Gottlieb said Adebolajo is "not so depraved or wicked that he is incapable of redemption", saying the murder "shares the characteristics of a religiously aggravated crime".

'Soldier of Allah'

He said that Adebolajo intended to die and still believed he should be put to death.

Adebolajo had claimed he was a "soldier of Allah" and the killing was an act of war.

Counsel for Michael Adebowale, Abbas Lakha QC, told the court the case was "horrific" but was not a case "where the offending is so exceptionally high that Mr Adebowale must be kept in prison for his life".

He said: "The right and proper sentence is one which does leave open the possibility of release in the future. Any other sentence would be inhuman."

At the beginning of the hearing the defendants, both dressed in black, were asked to stand, although Adebolajo did not.

Fusilier Rigby, from Middleton, Greater Manchester, was murdered as he returned to his barracks in Woolwich, south-east London on 22 May 2013. He died of multiple cut and stab wounds.

Adebolajo and Adebowale drove into Fusilier Rigby at 30 to 40mph, before dragging him into the road and attacking him with knives and attempting to decapitate him with a meat cleaver.

-BBC