Redhill man Haider Ahmed jailed over knife terror plot

Haider Ahmed was aged 16 when he planned the attack

A supporter of Islamic State (IS) who planned a terror attack with a hunting knife has been jailed for six years.

Haider Ahmed, 19, from Redhill in Surrey, was found guilty of preparing an act of terrorism at an earlier hearing at Kingston Crown Court.

Ahmed was aged 16 and 17 at the time he planned the attack, which was uncovered he was arrested in October 2016 on suspicion of money laundering.

He had told contacts he wanted to conduct a suicide mission.

During the trial, jurors heard he bought a knife for £25 using Paypal, but his mother took it away after finding it in his bag.

Andrew Hall QC, who defended Ahmed, said: "He came across highly effective radicalisers who were fishing for the young, the isolated and the gullible.

"They found this boy in his bedroom in Surrey and he was brainwashed with a pernicious ideology and they turned him into their creature."

The court heard Ahmed bought a knife for £25

Sentencing, Judge Peter Lodder QC said: "I very much hope that you take advantage of the programmes available to you in prison and realise that radicalisation is not the way forward for you."

Outside court, Ahmed's sister, Fizza Ahmed, said the government should take action on internet sites promoting IS ideology and she believed her brother was a victim.

"My brother was only 16, even less than that, when he began searching all of this and it shouldn't have been accessible to him in the first place.

"I'm very disappointed there was not enough protection."

Ahmed, of Wordsworth Mead, also pleaded guilty to four counts of disseminating violent IS propaganda, collecting a record of terrorist information and assisting another person to prepare acts of terrorism.

Det Ch Supt Kath Barnes, head of Counter Terrorism Policing South East, said: Ahmed was "a dangerous young man".

"A prominent presence online, he possessed a significant amount of shocking material promoting a warped ideology."