Youngest woman to be convicted of plotting terror attack on UK soil jailed for life

The youngest woman to be convicted of plotting a terror attack on British soil has been jailed for life.

Safaa Boular was the final member of Britain’s first all-woman terror cell to be sentenced at the Old Bailey as she was handed the 13 year minimum sentence.

The 18-year-old was previously found guilty after a trial of two counts of preparing terrorist acts.

The court heard that Boular had hid her Islamic State-inspired plans in coded conversations about preparations for an innocent Mad Hatter’s tea party.

Boular was sitting her GCSEs when she was seduced online by IS fighter Naweed Hussain and planned to join the 32-year-old in Syria but when the plan was thwarted, she began planning a grenade and gun attack on the British Museum.

Their plans were uncovered by online MI5 role-players and the Boular family home in Vauxhall, south London, was bugged.

Jailing Safaa Boular for two counts of preparing terrorist acts, Judge Mark Dennis QC rejected claims she had entirely renounced her Islamist views and downplayed the extent grooming played in her radicalisation.

He told the Old Bailey: ‘In my view there’s insufficient evidence to say at this stage this defendant is a truly transformed individual.

‘Her views were deeply entrenched.

‘However much she may have been influenced and drawn into extremism, it appeared she knew what she was doing and acted with open eyes.’

Hussain was killed in a drone stroke in April last year, strengthening Boular’s resolve.

While in custody for trying to travel to Syria, she passed the baton to her older sibling Rizlaine and the trial heard the pair made coded telephone calls in which they discussed a traditional English tea party with an Alice in Wonderland theme.

Rizlaine, 22, then set about arming herself and looking at targets around the Palace of Westminster, helped by her mother Mina Dich.

The older sister shared her plans with her friend Khawla Barghouthi, 21, and even practised the knife attack at her home in Willesden, north-west London.

But the family were being watched by counter-terrorism police and Rizlaine was shot when armed police moved in to arrest the gang on April 27 last year.

She made a full recovery and was jailed for life with a minimum term of 16 years after admitting preparing acts of terrorism.

Dich, 44, from Vauxhall Cross, south London, was jailed for six years and nine months with an additional five years on licence for helping her.

Barghouthi, who pleaded guilty to failing to alert authorities, was jailed for two years and four months.