Crime Solicitors

The killers of Fusilier Lee Rigby have been sentenced to life imprisonment at the Old Bailey – but only one received a whole-life sentence.

The sentencing of Michael Adebolajo, 29 and Michael Adebowale, 22, was postponed pending last week’s Court of Appeal hearing, which upheld the right of judges in Britain to award whole-life sentences for the most serious crimes.

The European Court of Human Rights last year responded to the appeals of three killers handed whole-life sentences by British courts, by ruling that whole-life sentences breached human rights and life sentences must be reviewed after 25 years.

The Strasbourg Court ruled that, in handing down whole-life sentences, Britain was in breach of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Court of Appeal judges ruled, however, that in certain circumstances prisoners serving whole-life terms still had the right of a sentence review or the possibility of being allowed out on licence – for example, if they were suffering a terminal illness.

The Court of Appeal therefore rejected the Strasbourg Court’s ruling that whole-life sentences are “inhuman”.

British-born Adebolajo and Adebowale had claimed at their trial that they had carried out the brutal attack on Fusilier Lee Rigby in May 2013 as “soldiers of Allah” in retaliation to British foreign policy in Muslim countries – and therefore were not guilty of murder.

They were found guilty by unanimous verdict of the jury, however.

At the Old Bailey yesterday (26/02/14), Adebolajo received a whole-life sentence for the murder of Lee Rigby, and his accomplice Adebowale received a life sentence with the condition he serve a minimum of 45 years.

The two men reacted angrily during sentencing and had to be restrained by prison guards and removed from the court, after Mr Justice Sweeney told the men that their actions had been a betrayal of Islam. Both men denied this before being restrained and then removed and taken to the cells.

Mr Justice Sweeney sentenced both men in their absence.

It is thought both Adebolajo and Adebowale were intending to become martyrs after the killing of Lee Rigby. Both remained at the scene of the killing outside Woolwich Barracks until police arrived. However, although police marksmen shot both men to restrain them when they launched an attack on a police car and aimed a gun at police officers, they survived to stand trial for the soldier’s brutal murder.

On leaving the court yesterday, they shouted Allahu Akbar – and warned that Britain and America “will never be safe”.

Duncan Lewis Criminal Solicitors

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