A man who tried to behead a passenger at a London underground station while shouting he was doing it for Syria has been sentenced to life in jail.

Several people filmed the December 5 Leytonstone incident. On one of the videos posted online, 30-year old Muhaydin Mire, of east London, can be seen as police stopped him using a taser.

He pleaded guilty to four counts of attempted wounding but denied trying to kill his victim, who suffered a 12-cm gash in the neck. He will serve a minimum of 8-1/2 years in prison after London’s Old Bailey criminal court convicted him of attempted murder.

Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC said while Mire suffered from paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the attack, he was likely motivated by the war in Syria.

Mire reportedly had an image of the British ISIL executioner known as Jihadi John on his mobile phone, along with material linked to the militant group.