Court hears Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale ran over Lee Rigby before attacking him with knives and machete

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

A man accused of murdering Lee Rigby in a "horrific, frenzied attack" claimed he carried out the killing in retaliation for the deaths of Muslim women and children at the hands of British soldiers, a court has heard.

A jury at the Old Bailey was told Michael Adebolajo, 28, and Michael Adebowale, 22, ran over Rigby before attacking him with knives and a machete. According to witnesses, Adebolajo grabbed the soldier's hair and hacked at his neck "like a butcher attacking a joint of meat".

In CCTV footage played to the court Adebolajo was filmed shortly after the attack telling passersby: "The only reason we have killed this man today is because Muslims are dying daily by British soldiers.

"This British soldier is one – he is an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."

Speaking into the camera with bloodied hands, he went on: "You people will never be safe. Remove your governments – they don't care about you.

"Do you think David Cameron is going to get caught in the street when we start busting our guns? Do you think your politicians are going to die?"

Horrified onlookers pleaded with two men not to kill the soldier, prosecutors told the court on Friday.

Jurors were shown the moment Rigby, 25, was run over by a Vauxhall Tigra travelling at between 30mph and 40mph as he crossed a road near Woolwich military barracks in south London on 22 May.

The attackers got out of the car before one gripped the soldier's hair and "repeatedly hacked" at the right side of his neck with a cleaver, the court heard.

The jury saw video of two men dragging Rigby's body into the middle of the road after he had been mutilated.

A short time later several women are seen talking to the men before one of them, Amanda Donnelly Martin, is shown going to Rigby's lifeless body and rubbing his back.

The video shows Adebolajo handing a letter to one of the women. The court heard the handwritten note suggested "carnage reaching your town" was "simply retaliation for your oppression in our towns".

It said when the "heat of battle" came, "it is unlikely that any of your so-called politicians will be caught up in the crossfire, so I suggest that you remove them".

However, the prosecutor Richard Whittam QC dismissed any notion that retaliation for any perceived wrongdoing was a defence morally or in law.

"Killing to make a political point, or to frighten the public to put pressure on the government, or as an expression of anger, is murder and remains murder whether the government in question is a good one, a bad one or a dreadful one.

"Equally there is no defence of moral justification for killing, just as there is no defence of religious justification. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth suggests revenge or retaliation and, in the context of this case, murder."

Graphic detail of the attack emerged on the first day of the trial in central London.

Adebolajo and Adebowale are accused of murdering Rigby – a drummer and machine-gunner in the 2nd Battalion, the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers – as he walked back to Woolwich military barracks.

The pair deny murder.

The court heard that witnesses saw Adebolajo grab Rigby by the hair after the latter had been knocked down and described how he "repeatedly hacked" at the soldier's neck.

The jury heard Adebolajo was using considerable force, "bringing his hand into the air each time before he struck".

Outlining the crown's case, Whittam quoted a witness, Amanda Bailey, as saying: "I was so shocked that all I could do was sit there and stare at what was happening. I couldn't believe what was going on. He was determined and he was not going to stop."

Bailey said she saw Adebolajo hack at Rigby's neck nine times and the jury heard she was so shocked she had no idea how long the attack lasted. "It felt like a lifetime," she said.

The court heard that another witness, Gary Perkins, saw Adebolajo "sawing at the neck of Lee Rigby with a machete". He said the attack was like "a butcher attacking a joint of meat".

Another witness told police he "instantly believed that he [the attacker] was trying to cut the victim's head off by the way he was attacking him", jurors were told.

Saraj Miah, who was standing outside a nearby shop, saw two men attacking Rigby and shouted: "Don't kill him," but they did not listen, the jurors were told.

Rigby, a father of one from Middleton, Greater Manchester, died from multiple cut and stab wounds when he was attacked as he returned to the barracks after spending the day at the Tower of London.

His final moments were recorded on CCTV as he walked from Woolwich Arsenal DLR station to his barracks, wearing a blue Help for Heroes hooded top with a camouflage backpack slung over his shoulder.

Jurors were shown footage of Rigby crossing Artillery Place, where he was struck from behind by the Vauxhall Tigra, which had been parked around the corner, knocking him unconscious. "What unfolded after that was shocking to those who observed it," Whittam told the court.

An electrician, Thomas Seymour, stopped his car when he noticed the crashed Tigra and Rigby's body on the floor. Seymour saw the two men – one armed with what the court heard was a long knife with a silver blade and the other with a meat cleaver – the jury was told.

Whittam said Seymour saw the man with the cleaver "attack the neck of Lee Rigby as he lay motionless. He held his head and deliberately sliced at the neck."

Seymour "instantly believed that he was trying to cut the victim's head off by the way he was attacking him", the court heard.

Several members of Rigby's family, including his widow and his parents, sat to the right of the court dock holding Adebolajo and Adebowale, with a brown paper sheet obscuring their view of the two accused.

Some family members left the courtroom when jurors were told they were about to see footage of Rigby being run over and, later, when they saw video of him being dragged into the road.

Later the jury was shown footage of the moment the first armed police arrived on the scene. Both defendants can be seen running towards the police car brandishing weapons, before being shot and falling to the ground. Within a couple of minutes the same officers are shown administering first aid.

Adebolajo, from Romford, Essex, has asked to be known as Mujaahid Abu Hamza in court. Adebowale, from Greenwich, south-east London, has asked to be called Ismail Ibn Abdullah.

The accused have pleaded guilty to a separate charge of carrying a firearm "with intent to cause fear of violence", the court heard. They deny murder.

They are also charged with conspiring to murder and the attempted murder of police officers who arrived at the scene of the attack. Both defendants deny these charges.

The trial continues.