Islamist couple
in terror plot jailed

Mohammed Sajid Khan, 33, was given an indeterminate sentence for the public’s protection with a minimum term of seven years and six months. His wife Shasta Khan, 38, was jailed for eight years.

The couple, from Oldham, bought substances and equipment from supermarkets to make bombs, Manchester Crown Court previously heard.

But their plot was foiled when police were called to a domestic dispute at their home in Foster Street, Oldham, and found a cache of terror-related material.

Passing sentence yesterday, Mr Justice Wilkie told Mohammed Sajid Khan, originally from Bradford, he was a “committed Islamic extremist”.

He added: “Your preparations were serious and well advanced over a broad front so that, if undisturbed, I am satisfied that before too long you would have been in a position to launch a potentially deadly attack.”

Khan has a long history of previous convictions and has previously spent time in jail for violent offences, the hearing was told.

Khan, an unemployed car valeter, pleaded guilty to engaging in conduct in preparation for acts of terrorism at an earlier hearing.

The judge said he was “a significant risk” to the public and a “committed Islamic extremist intent on violent Jihad”.

Khan will not be allowed to apply for parole until he has completed his minimum term.

Turning to Shasta Khan, the Judge said: “You had become, under the influence of your husband, a devoted Jihadist motivated by extremist Islamist beliefs.”

He went on: “Underlying your conversion was a desire to support your husband right or wrong and to keep your third marriage together.”

He said in his view she was rightly convicted by the jury and was an active part in the plot and aware her home was “awash with extremist Islamic propaganda”

“You and your husband formed a partnership, I accept he was the dominant partner but is was one in which you supported him in his endeavour,” he said.

It’s thought the Khans are the first married couple to be convicted of terror offences in the UK.

Hairdresser Shasta Khan, a mother-of-one, was found guilty after yesterday following a month-long trial of conduct in preparation for acts of terrorism and two counts of possessing information useful for committing or preparing for an act of terrorism.

She was jailed for eight years for the first charge and four years for each of the remaining charges, to be served concurrently.

Shasta Khan’s trial heard they became radicalised by material such as an al-Qaida magazine called Inspire, which encourages Muslims in the West to carry out holy war or jihad.

In response, the pair prepared to carry out a terrorist attack on British soil, with the most likely target being an orthodox Jewish area of Prestwich, the jury were told.

Prosecutor Bobbie Cheema told them that behind their “apparent normality of daily life”, the couple, who met on a Muslim dating website, planned to carry out “jihad at home”.

He said the plot emerged in July last year, when a “serious row” developed between the couple and the husband left home to go back to his parents in Bradford,.

Two days later he returned but there was more trouble, and when police were called the wife then decided to “spill the beans”.