Haroon Syed, 19, tried to obtain suicide vest or machine gun and identified concert on September 11 anniversary as target

A teenager who plotted to bomb an Elton John concert on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks has been jailed for life.



Haroon Syed, 19, tried to obtain a suicide vest or machine gun and identified the event in Hyde Park, central London, last year as a possible target.

Man plotted attacks on Buckingham Palace and Elton John concert Read more

He was snared online by officers from the British security service posing as a fellow extremist called Abu Yusuf. The Old Bailey heard the trigger for Syed’s radicalisation was the arrest of his older brother for plotting an Islamic State-inspired Remembrance Sunday attack.

Syed, from Hounslow,in west London, had admitted preparation of terrorist acts between April and September last year.

Mark Summers QC, mitigating, said it was a “crude, ill-thought-out” plan made at the behest of others. The court heard Syed had fallen under the influence of members of al-Muhajiroun, the banned group linked to jailed preacher Anjem Choudary.

Despite the risk around the time of his brother’s arrest, Syed slipped through the net of the Prevent anti-radicalisation team, although his passport was seized in 2015.

Bradford imam Alyas Karmani, a Home Office approved deradicalisation expert, told the court there should have been earlier intervention in his case.

Summers added that Syed now publicly rejected his past beliefs and condemned the recent bomb attack at the Ariana Grande pop concert in Manchester.

But the judge said the risk Syed posed warranted a discretionary life sentence and ordered him to serve a minimum of 16 and a half years.

Michael Topolski QC said: “Overall, you were, and you remained intent upon and committed to, carrying out an act of mass murder in this country. You were not lured, you were not enticed, you were not entrapped.

“You became, and in my judgment as shown by your online activities away from your contact with Abu Yusuf, deeply committed to the ideology of a brutal and barbaric organisation that sought to hijack and corrupt an ancient and venerable religion for its own purposes and you wanted to be part of it.”



Topolski told Syed that he had been vulnerable and susceptible to radicalisation. But he added: “Once you had found this new place to be, this stopped being a game, if it ever was one, and became something deadly serious … you wanted to be a part of it. It made you feel like a man.”

The court heard how key evidence came from Syed’s chat with his fake contact, Abu Yusuf, via mobile phone and social media.



Syed asked for “gear” for his “opp” and when asked to give details, he said he needed a machine gun and an explosive vest “so after some damage with machine gun do martyrdom ... that’s what I’m planning to do”.





An officer pretending to be Abu Yusuf met Syed at a branch of Costa Coffee in Slough, Berkshire, and their discussion was secretly recorded.

Syed repeatedly urged the officer to get him weapons for free as he was turned down for bank loans.



On 30 Augus, Syed said he needed a portable device, saying: “I might put the bomb in the train and then I’m going to jump out so the bomb explodes on the train …. So ask the brother if he can make that type of bomb with button.”



Syed arranged to pick up the bomb in exchange for £150 the following week. He asked Abu Yusuf to make sure there were lots of nails in it and added: “I was thinking of Oxford Street … If I go to prison, I go to prison. If I die, I die, you understand.”



He searched the internet for Isis, past terrorist attacks, and potential locations, which included the Elton John concert in Hyde Park.



Police arrested Syed at his home on 8 September and his phone was seized. Asked for the password to unlock the device, Syed said: “Yeah I.S.I.S – you like that?”



In legal papers prepared for his defence, Syed was described as “highly vulnerable due to family history, lack of education, addiction to violent online games and the arrest and imprisonment of his brother”.



Last June Syed’s brother, Isis-inspired Nadir Syed, 23, also from Hounslow, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 15 years after he was found guilty of plotting to carry out a Lee Rigby-style beheading in 2014.