CONVICTED: Tarik Hassane and Suhaib Majeed were plotting a terrorist murder spree in London
CONVICTED: Tarik Hassane and Suhaib Majeed were plotting a terrorist murder spree in London

Two men from London convicted of conspiring to commit a terrorist murder

Following an investigation by the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command two men have been convicted of conspiring to commit a terrorist murder.

22-year-old Tarik Hassane, of West London, and 21-year-old Suhaib Majeed, of North West London, were convicted on Wednesday of conspiring to commit a terrorist murder.

They intended to target police, military or members of the public and then make their escape on a moped.

Two other men, Nyall Hamlett, 25, Nathan Cuffy, 26, both also from London, pleaded guilty to firearms offences. They were found not guilty of conspiring to commit a terrorist murder.

The evidence uncovered by the Counter Terrorism Command’s investigation showed that Hassane was the leader of the group, and having pledged an oath of allegiance to Daesh on 9th July 2014, was determined to carry out a terrorist attack in the UK.

Majeed and Hassane – who are close friends – were central figures in the plot, researching and planning their attack using coded communications. The court heard that Hamlett was the conduit, and Cuffy the armourer who supplied the gun from the stash of five firearms he had hidden in his house.

Majeed, Hamlet and Cuffy were arrested between 24th and 26th September 2014. During these arrests and searches of their home addresses, police recovered five firearms and ammunition. One of these firearms, a Baikal pistol, had both a silencer and ammunition and was intended for use in the plot.

Hassane, a medical student known to his friends as ‘The Surgeon’ was studying in the Sudan when his accomplices were arrested, but returned home to the UK on 30th September 2014, still intent on his attack plan.

He continued to conduct online research of Shepherds Bush Police Station and the Parachute Regiment Territorial Army (TA) Centre in White City using Google Maps. He was arrested on 7th October 2014.

Following the arrests, police uncovered the full extent of the planned plot.

Searches of addresses led to officers seizing hundreds of communication and storage devices.

Extensive examinations of these identified key devices that included two iPads, a memory card, three USB sticks, two laptops, an external hard drive and seven phones.

These showed the group had been using various social media platforms across the devices with applications specifically downloaded to avoid detection.

Majeed downloaded encrypted software to talk to extremist groups overseas and whilst police have never confirmed where the person was, officers do know they were in the same time zone as Syria.

Evidence downloaded from these devices graphically demonstrated the extreme mindset of Hassane and Majeed. They had shared between them a Fatwa issued by Abu Muhammad Al-Adnani, a leading member of Daesh, encouraging the murder of soldiers, police, security and intelligence agents.

There were also many graphic images of beheadings and material in support of Daesh. These all provided valuable evidence of both the planning and the motivation of the plot which was put before the court.

The men were sufficiently advanced in their plans that prior to their arrest they had acquired a handgun, a silencer and ammunition and had plans to get a moped and identify somewhere to store them before and following the attack.