(Reuters) – Two inmates of a British jail who tried to murder a prison officer while wearing makeshift suicide-bomb belts have been convicted after an investigation by anti-terrorist police.
Armed with improvised weapons, they lured the officer to a cupboard and pushed him to the floor before seriously injuring him.
“This was a calculated and horrific attack by two prisoners who had one aim – to try and murder prison staff,” said police Commander Richard Smith, head of London’s Counter Terrorism Command.
Police said the two men had been wearing imitation suicide belts they had made from wires and plastic cartons. Their attack was foiled by other prison officers who rapidly filled the area and secured them in cells.
Detectives later recovered writings by both men, which supported extremist Islamic ideology.
Brusthom Ziamani, 25, and Baz Macaulay Hockton, 26, were convicted at the Old Bailey court on Wednesday of attempted murder. Ziamani was also convicted of actual bodily harm and common assault of a nurse and another officer who both came to the victim’s assistance at the Whitemoor maximum security prison in eastern England in January.
They will be sentenced on Thursday.
(Reporting by Stephen Addison)
