Tuesday, February 18

Man jailed for planning driverless car terror attack


 

 

A man who planned to use a bomb carried by a remote controlled vehicle to carry out a terror attack has been jailed for 15 years.

Farhad Salah, 24, was plotting to use the driverless car in an attack against an unknown target. He was convicted at Sheffield Crown Court earlier this month of preparing to commit acts of terrorism.

Jurors heard that Salah posted on social media about using a driverless car in an attack.

Counter-terror police said Salah was not close to achieving his aim of putting a device in a vehicle but officers believe he was a “very real risk to the safety of the public in the UK”.

The raids in Sheffield and Chesterfield happened in the aftermath of the Manchester Arena explosion, the terror attacks on Westminster and London Bridge, and at a time when there were fears that another atrocity was being planned for the Christmas period.

But police said they have never been able to identify Salah’s intended target.

Opening the case, prosecutor Anne Whyte QC told the jury: “The intention was to manufacture a device which would be placed in a vehicle but controlled remotely so that no-one had to martyr themselves in the process.”

She said that, a week before he was arrested, Salah messaged a contact on Facebook saying: “My only attempt is to find a way to carry out martyrdom operation with cars without driver, everything is perfect only the programme is left …”

The prosecutor said: “Farhad Salah had decided that improvised explosive devices could be made and used in a way here in the UK that spared his own life preferably but harmed others he considered to be infidels.”