Life term for soldier plot fanatic

Refusing to turn up to court, Parviz Khan was handed the minimum 14-year prison term in his absence after he pleaded guilty previously to the plan and to the supply of equipment for terrorists on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Four men were sentenced with him - one for failing to tell police about Khan's plot and three for helping the 37-year-old with his illicit supply line. But it was Khan, of Foxton Road, Alum Rock, who claimed to be a full-time carer for his elderly mother, who was the prime mover in the Birmingham-based terror cell.

Sentencing him at the end of a trial of two co-defendants at Leicester Crown Court, Mr Justice Henriques said: "You have been described by the Crown as a man who has the most violent and extreme Islamist views and as a fanatic.

"Having studied over the last month (the covert recordings), I unhesitatingly accept that description of you. You not only plotted to kill a soldier but you intended to film a most brutal killing."

The trial of Zahoor Iqbal and Amjad Mahmood revealed how Khan had turned from a drinker and smoker who liked nightclubs into an extremist obsessed with the speeches of Osama Bin Laden and Sheikh Abu Hamza.

Khan was claiming benefits of more than £20,000 a year during the time he plotted to snatch the serviceman off the streets and decapitate him "like a pig", the court was told.

Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt, praised police and intelligence services and added: "I would like particularly to thank our Muslim soldiers for having the courage to stand up for what is right in the face of terrorism and intimidation."

Khan was given a minimum 14 years for the plot. Basiru Gassama, 30, of Radstock Avenue, Hodge Hill, was jailed for two years and now faces deportation after pleading guilty at a previous hearing to a failure to disclose information about the plot.

Mohammed Irfan, 31, of Asquith Road, Ward End, and Hamid Elasmar, 44, of Bristol Road, Edgbaston, were given four years and three years and four months respectively after they pleaded guilty to helping supply equipment. Iqbal, 30, of Elmbridge Road, Perry Barr, was jailed for seven years after a jury found him guilty for his part in the shipment of goods. Mahmood, 32, of Jackson Road, Alum Rock, was cleared by the jury of knowing about the plot and failing to tell the authorities, and supplying equipment.