This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A teenager has been found guilty of plotting a terrorist attack in London, making her one of the youngest females to be charged and convicted of terrorism offences in the UK.

Safaa Boular, 18, who was accused of discussing a grenade and gun attack on the British Museum in central London with her Islamic State militant partner, Naweed Hussain, was also found guilty over an earlier attempt to travel to Syria for terrorism.

When she was detained on charges of attempting to travel to Isis-controlled territory in Syria, she passed the plot on to her older sister, Rizlaine Boular, 22.



How London teenager plotted attacks with all-female terror cell Read more

Safaa Boular, who lived at home with her mother, Mina Dich, 44, in Vauxhall, south-west London, had denied two counts of preparing acts of terrorism.

Her sister had already pleaded guilty to planning a knife attack in London. Dich admitted assisting her, and their family friend Khawla Barghouthi, 21, pleaded guilty to failing to disclose information about an attack.



It is the first all-female terrorist cell linked to Isis in the UK.

The court heard that Boular met Hussain, from Coventry, who was aged 30 and a known Isis recruiter, online when she was 16. They were in contact for three months before they declared their love for each other and had what she regarded as an online Islamic marriage.

Duncan Atkinson QC, prosecuting, told jurors Boular wanted to marry Hussain and carry out a suicide attack in Syria. When she was stopped by police from joining him in the war-torn country, messages on her phone revealed repeated conversations about a potential attack in the UK.

Boular claimed she never agreed to any attack. Her defence lawyer, Joel Bennathan QC, said she was a child when Hussain “groomed” her. “Around November [2016] he proposed to me about an attack at Christmas,” Boular told the court. “He asked me if I was scared of being in an attack and I told him yes I am. Then he went back to the same usual lovey-dovey topics.”

She said after Hussain realised the pair would never meet he proposed an attack in the UK and “said even if I need a car or a knife that’s what I should do”.

When Boular rebuffed the idea, she told the court he “just went back to the same conversation we had before – romantic, sweet.”

She said Hussain raised the prospect again in early 2017, suggesting she could carry out an attack on Valentine’s Day. “Again I refused. I assumed it was the usual stuff he talked about before, like car or knife attacks,” she said, adding that she did not drive.

In messages after her birthday in March, Hussain mentioned an attack for the third time. He talked about “Tokarev” and “pineapples” – meaning guns and grenades – in relation to a proposed attack on the British Museum, the court heard.

Jurors heard how the couple shared their enthusiasm for TV gameshows such as Deal or No Deal, but also fantasised about killing Barack Obama and exchanged extremist material.

Boular chatted to Hussain on a secret mobile phone. After Hussain was killed in Syria, she told undercover MI5 officers she planned to carry out his plans for an attack in the UK and join him in martyrdom.

When she was charged and detained for planning to travel to Isis territory for terrorism, she recruited her sister. Safaa and Rizlaine Boular discussed the attack in a coded conversation – played to the court – about an Alice in Wonderland-themed party.

In a recording, Rizlaine Boular said she wanted to have “an English tea party kind of thing, little tea cups, tea cakes and stuff”, and Safaa Boular suggested an Alice in Wonderland theme, saying: “You can be the Mad Hatter ‘cause your hair’s crazy. You can have cucumber and butter sandwiches.”

Around the same time, Dich and Rizlaine Boular travelled around various landmarks in London, which was believed to be a reconnaissance of potential targets. The following day, they went to a supermarket on Wandsworth Road and purchased a packet of kitchen knives and a rucksack.

A day later Rizlaine Boular was recorded discussing the planned knife attack and practising at Bargouthi’s home. That evening, during an armed police raid, Rizlaine Boular was shot and taken to hospital. Dich was arrested separately.

“This was without doubt a major investigation for the counter-terrorism command working jointly with the security service,” said Dean Haydon, the Met’s senior national coordinator for counter-terrorism.

“Not only because it involved a family with murderous intent, but because it is the first all-female terrorist plot that’s been launched in the UK related to Daesh [Isis].”

Boular made no reaction in the dock as she was found guilty by a jury after two days of deliberations. Judge Mark Dennis QC put off sentencing for around six weeks for a report to be compiled.