Three Islamic State supporters arrested days before Remembrance Sunday last year were plotting a terror attack at the commemorations to emulate the killing of soldier Lee Rigby, a court has heard. They were acting on a “truly chilling” fatwa, or religious edict, issued by Isis to “rig the roads with explosives” and to cut off the heads of members of the public, police officers or security services, said the prosecution.

“This fatwa ... inspired the defendants to plan their own attack in this country, emulating the attack on Lee Rigby,” Max Hill, QC for the prosecution told the court.

The prosecution alleged that the three men, who were “unnaturally interested in murders and beheadings”, were plotting an attack around Remembrance Sunday with a self-made phone video showing their alleged contempt for the poppy as the symbol of war commemoration.

In the five weeks prior to their arrest on 6 November, they became increasingly obsessed with Islamic State beheadings, storing gruesome images of victims including those of British taxi driver Alan Henning and US journalist James Foley. Most of the images were heavily sanitised when played for the jury. They purchased knives including a “Rambo-style” hunting knife online and from a shop in Ealing, which the prosecution believed were to be used in an attack on a member of the public.

The jury were shown phone video footage from two of the defendants stamping on a poppy in a darkly lit street before pushing it into a drain. “May the poppy go to hell, God willing, Inshallah,” one said. “The attitude to the poppy as the remembrance image in this country is clear,” said Hill.

Nadir Ali Syed, 22, from Hounslow, west London, his cousin Yousaf Shah Syed, 20, from High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, and Haseeb Hamayoon, 28, from Hayes, west London, have been charged with one count of terrorism, a plot of “researching, planning and sourcing of weapons and equipment with a view to committing acts against persons in the UK using knives” between 20 September and 7 November last year. They were arrested on 6 November last year, just days before Remembrance Day. All three have pleaded not guilty.

Hill told the jury there was “no coincidence” between their increased terror-related discussions on chatrooms in the runup to the arrest and the commemorations for the start of the first world war.

On 31 October, Hamayoon had posted an image of poppies on WhatsApp with the words: “So do not feel sorry for the disbelieving people.” Two days later, Nadir remarked: “Wearing a poppy supports murdering terrorist.”

Hill told jurors: “We would invite you to consider the timing of this increased activity coming just a few days before Remembrance Sunday on 9 November and Remembrance Day on 11 November.”

The prosecutor told jurors there was evidence the men had shown an interest in the brutal murder of Rigby, and that one of the defendants had images of his killers, Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, on his handset, with the word “Mujahid”, meaning Islamic fighter.

The defendants were in almost daily discussion about violent acts following the issuing of the fatwa last September by Aby Muhammad al-Adnani, a spokesman for Isis, the jury heard.

The 11-page fatwa claimed to “provide specific justification for killing police officers and members of western security services”, said Hill.

The document instructed followers to “rig the road with explosives for them [enemies], attack their bases. Raid their homes. Cut off their heads ... hunt them, wherever they may be ... remove their families from their homes and thereafter blow up their homes.”

Jurors heard that before the fatwa, the defendants had shown a keen interest in Isis – the Syeds had booked return flights to Turkey last January. While Nadir could not board the flight because he was on police bail in connection with a public order incident a month earlier, his cousin did travel. Prosecutors believe Yousaf was minded to go on to Syria, but after contact with his family, returned to the UK earlier than planned. Days later, in February, Hamayoon used his wife’s bank account to buy a “Rambo-style” knife from a website called Blade Bargains, the court heard.

Jurors were told the defendants had shown “a level of interest in Rigby that was repeated again and again and again”. When arrested, detectives discovered images of police community support officers – one outside a Superdrug store in London and another patrolling the car park of the Hounslow mosque – on the phones of Nadir Syed and Hamayoon respectively.

The Syeds exchanged messages about the American journalist James Foley, who was beheaded in August last year, while Nadir also discussed the beheading of a second American journalist, Steven Sotloff, in an internet chatroom.

On the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attack, Yousaf Syed remarked that “3,000 piglets died that day”, while on 13 September, a week before the fatwa, Nadir had created images of 9/11, the 7/7 terror attack in London and of the beheading of a British taxi driver, Alan Henning. By 5 November, all three were discussing how to source knives, the jury heard.



Hamayoon recommended “the dad of all knives”, a 12-inch Victorinox chef’s knife. He had already bought one for £36 from a kitchenware shop in Ealing and offered to take Nadir there to get one for himself.



At one point, Hill paused to warn jurors they were about to see “a shocking image”, albeit sanitised, of a man being beheaded by Isis taken from Nadir’s phone. The photograph showed a man with his head pushed back and being decapitated, Hill said. Nadir wrote: “Big knife for a big kafir.”

Nadir, who had a phone with the pin code 77911, in an apparent reference to the dates of extremist attacks in London and New York, also quipped: “I really don’t get these guys that go back and forth to Syria ... why wuld u ever want to come back”.

The trial continues.