Lee Rigby’s killers get £20,000 
in legal aid

SOLDIER LEE Rigby’s killers were handed more than £200,000 in taxpayer-funded financial support to pay their legal bills.

The murder of Fusilier Rigby, whose widow, Rebecca, is from Halifax, sparked shock across the country after he was mowed down with a car and then hacked to death by British Muslim converts Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale in Woolwich, south-east London, on May 22 last year.

A Freedom of Information request by a national newspaper revealed that the extremists received a combined £212,613.32 in legal aid to cover solicitors and advocates fees and other disbursements.

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The figures emerged as Adebolajo lost the first stage of his bid to challenge his conviction and sentence.

The Judicial Office confirmed that permission to appeal was refused by a judge who considered the case on the papers, but that Adebolajo has renewed both applications. This means that his applications will now be aired before a panel of Court of Appeal judges at a hearing in London.

Adebolajo, who was sentenced in February to a whole-life term, condemning him to die behind bars, received £138,803.96 in legal aid, according to Ministry of Justice figures. Adebowale, 23, who was jailed for life with a minimum term of 45 years for his role in the murder, received £73,809.36. He has been given the go-ahead to challenge his sentence before Court of Appeal judges.

Adebolajo and Adebowale ran 25-year-old Fusilier Rigby down in a car before attacking him with a meat cleaver and knives in a frenzied attack after lying in wait near Woolwich Barracks. They picked Fusilier Rigby to kill after assuming he was a soldier as he was wearing a Help for Heroes hooded top and carrying a camouflage rucksack.

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