Man acquitted of terror charge in Buckingham Palace sword attack
Mohiussunnath Chowdhury, who last year injured police officers outside queen’s residence while shouting ‘Allahu Akbar,’ said he was merely trying to get killed
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on Google
LONDON, United Kingdom — An Uber driver was found not guilty Wednesday of a terror charge after he injured police officers arresting him outside Queen Elizabeth II’s Buckingham Palace residence while he was armed with a Samurai sword.
Mohiussunnath Chowdhury, 27, was unanimously acquitted by jurors at England’s Old Bailey central criminal court in London of one charge of preparing acts of terrorism, following a retrial.
Two unarmed officers had suffered cuts to their hands when they tried to disarm him near the monarch’s famous London residence in August 2017.
They feared for their lives during the confrontation as Chowdhury repeatedly shouted “Allahu Akbar.”
The court also heard he supported terrorism by the Islamic State group, and had sent a suicide note to his sister “expressing hate of the queen and her soldiers.”
But during his trial Chowdhury, from the town of Luton, north of London, told jurors he only wanted to be killed by police and had no intention to hurt anyone himself.
After the not guilty verdict was read out, he saluted the jurors who had spent 11 hours and 36 minutes considering his fate.
A spokesman for England’s Crown Prosecution Service said Chowdhury had been charged with “the most appropriate offence” and would face no further prosecution over the incident.
The Times of Israel Community.