Safaa Boular, Britain's youngest woman to be convicted of plotting a terror attack, has had her sentenced reduced by two years

The UK’s youngest female ISIS terrorist has had her life sentenced slashed from 13 years to 11 after her lawyer compared her to a child grooming gang victim.

Safaa Boular, 19, spurred on sister Rizlaine Boular, 23, and mother Mina Dich, 45, to hatch a suicide bomb attack after she was arrested while trying to travel to Syria.

Safaa was just 15-years-old when she was wooed by Coventry-born ISIS fighter Naweed Hussain, 32, who urged her to use grenades and guns in a kamikaze attack on the British Museum.

The teenager had never met him face to face but they were set to marry in a bizarre Skype ceremony.

Her defence lawyer Joel Bennathan, QC, said she had been ‘groomed and radicalised’ by Hussain and said that she had made her decision in the same way that the young girls in Rochdale haD when they ‘escaped their children’s homes’.

Safaa’s plans to join Hussain had been foiled when she was arrested, and her passport seized at the airport, following a family holiday to Morocco.

She was remanded in custody after planning to cause carnage in Britain.

Whilst Safaa was behind bars she made calls to her siblings, encouraging her sister Rizaline to continue.

The court heard how several references were made to ‘a party’, which is known as a basic code for an attack.

Boular, pictured bottom left, with her mother and sister before the trio began plotting carnage

The siblings made several references to ‘Jannah’, or paradise and mentioned a ‘Mad Hatters Tea Party’ and Alice in Wonderland.’

They had been encouraged by a hardline fundamentalist, Dich, who would drive her eldest daughter around London, passing London landmarks such as Westminster Bridge as the pair carried out hostile reconnaissance on 25 April, 2017.

On 26 April, the pair were seen buying knives and a rucksack on Wandsworth Road, southwest London.

The following day Rizlaine and her friend Khawla Barghouthi, 21, were recorded practicing how to carry out a knife attack at the latter’s home in Harlesden, northwest London.

Mother Mina Dich, right, helped with reconnaissance trips and bought knives and sister Rizlaine, left, planned to carry on the terror attack plans after Safaa was arrested

Barghouthi could be heard to ask: ‘How are you going to do it? What if they are faster than you?’

Boular replied: ‘I’ll put the knife into (inaudible) heart instead.’

Joel Bennathan, QC, representing Safaa Boular, compared her to the girls abused by the grooming gang in Rochdale.

He said the age had been ‘central’ to the grooming.

‘This is an appellant who was 15 for the first three months of the indictment period.

‘She had been groomed and radicalised, including sexual grooming by a man twice her age in Syria.’

Boular had planned to marry ISIS fighter Naweed Hussain and become a suicide bomber in Syria but started plotting an attack in London when he was killed in an air strike

Making reference to the grooming trials Mr Bennathan said: ‘The large grooming trials in Lancashire and Yorkshire, the complaint there was the girls who had been groomed were treated as voluntary participants.

‘She made her own decision in the same way the girls in Rochdale made their own decision to escape children’s homes, drink alcohol, smoke cannabis, and have sex with older males.’

He denied that the British museum was a serious plot and that his client had a leading role in it.

He said the headline grabbing plot which had obfuscated count 2, an attack with semi-automatic weapons and hand grenades, had been a fantasy.

‘Hussain was introduced to that fantasy by MI5 role players. This appellant was then involved by Naweed Hussain in that plot.

‘The extent of her training was that he had sent her some videos which she had watched carefully. If that is a leading role the term has no meaning.’

Imran Khan, for Rizlaine Boular, said: ‘Someone at 22 is not fully mature.’

Lord Justice Holroyde agreed: ‘No, it’s commonly thought that the brain is not fully mature until 25.’

Mr Khan continued: ‘This is a young woman aged 22 who had a very traumatic life.’

He said the mitigating features were ‘significant’ and said Boular suffered from PTSD.

He said: ‘The balancing exercise was weighted against the appellant. Simply to say that this was an immature young woman did the appellant no service.’

He said an extended determinate sentence rather than a life sentence would have sufficed.

Duncan Atkinson QC, for the prosecution, told the court: ‘We submit that in the case of both defendants that they were going to be in a leading role in what was going to be done.

he teenager took selfies outside the MI6 building in London as she plotted the terror attack

‘Rizlaine Boular was going to be the one in Westminster with the knife.

‘Safaa Boular was going to be the one wearing the suicide vest and engaging in the attack of the British museum.’

He said that there had been an aspect of grooming in the case of Safaa Boular but that the trial judge took that into account in reducing her sentence.

‘There had been aspects of early indoctrination and grooming and the judge had them in mind when he made the reduction.’

Terror sisters listened to Anjem Choudary sermons The often shocking trial of Safaa Boular heard she ran away from home in 2014 after feeling 'crazy, jealous' at schoolfriends who could talk to boys and 'wear what they wanted'. Rizlaine, her older sister had become increasingly radicalised in the toxic atmosphere home where it was normal to blame the sins of the world on the 'kafir' and the decadence of the West. Two months after Safaa ran away from home in August 2014, Rizlaine was caught trying to join ISIS in Istanbul and flown back to the UK. By the time of the Paris terror attacks in November 2015 Safaa too was fully radicalised and in contact with prolific ISIS recruiter Umm Isa Al-Amriki who was living there. Rizlaine also downloaded a stash of extremist material published by ISIS and Al Qaeda as well as content from radical preachers including Anjem Choudary and Mohammed Mizanur Rahman. Advertisement

Lord Justice Holroyde said: ‘The judge noted the dysfunctional home that the appellants grew up in.

‘Between 2013 and 2014 Mina Dich became increasingly extreme in her views.

‘Both appellants were exposed to extreme views from their mother and those she invited into the home.

‘At the time Safaa Boular was only 12-13, Rizlaine Boular was appreciably and materially older.’

Lord Justice Holroyde added: ‘Mr Khan presents an argument that the judge should have given greater consideration to the very unhappy upbringing of this appellant.

‘Which includes being exposed to abusive behaviour by her father towards her mother, being a victim of attempted trafficking, being indoctrinated and reduced to a state where she attempted suicide.

‘These are all matters which the judge clearly took into account in sentencing.’

Rizlaine Boular’s appeal was dismissed but Safaa Boular’s minimum term was reduced from 13 years to 11 years.

The judge said: ‘We are not able to accept the submission that Safaa Boular was not to play a leading role in the proposed activity.

‘She was to wear a suicide belt.

‘We have no doubt that the judge was entitled to regard that as a leading role.’

But he said that insufficient weight was put by the judge to her youth and the fact that she was indoctrinated and groomed.

He said: ‘For most of the indictment period the appellant was 16.

‘A reduction of a quarter was insufficient.

‘We quash the sentence, and we substitute for that sentence, custody for life with a minimum term of 11 years.’

Safaa Boular, southwest London, was convicted of two counts of engaging in preparation for terrorist acts and was jailed at trial for life with a minimum term of 13 years.

Her appeal was successful and her minimum term was reduced to 11 years.

Rizlaine Boular, Clerkenwell, central London admitted preparing for an attack in the UK using knives or other weapons and was jailed at trial for life with a minimum term of 16 years.

Her appeal to reduce the sentence was dismissed.