A former public schoolboy and Muslim convert who planned to blow himself up using a suicide vest has made so little progress in jail that he has been denied a face-to-face parole hearing.
Isa Ibrahim, formerly known as Andrew Michael, was given an indeterminate prison sentence with a minimum of ten years in July 2009 after being found guilty of making explosives with intent and preparing terrorist acts.
The trial at Winchester Crown Court was told that Ibrahim, then 20, made viable explosives, manufactured a suicide vest and carried out reconnaissance on the Broadmead shopping centre in Bristol.
Detectives believed he was about to launch an attack, possibly targeting the centre’s busy food court.
At the time the police hailed the case as a breakthrough as the key information that identified Ibrahim as a terror threat came from within the Muslim community.
Ibrahim’s extremism did not come to the attention of the authorities until members of a mosque he attended grew worried about his behaviour and contacted Avon and Somerset police….
It is uncommon for a parole application to be refused at this stage and highlights the fact that Ibrahim is still considered a danger to society….
Born Andrew Michael in January 1989, he has a Christian Egyptian father who is an NHS consultant pathologist. His mother, Vicky, is English.
He attended the private Colston’s School in Bristol but was asked to leave in 2002 due to behavioural problems.
His parents transferred him to another Bristol private school in Clifton, Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital, but he was again asked to transfer out.
In Downside Catholic boarding school in Bath, Somerset, he had few friends and was ‘bullied, hit or laughed at’.
It was there he started taking drugs, moving onto Class A crack and heroin and mixing with people outside school, and was eventually suspended.
At the time of his arrest he was a student at the then private City of Bristol College, where he achieved eight GCSEs and an A in English.
Winchester Crown Court was told that Ibrahim had an addictive personality and had moved from an interest in Islam to becoming fixated on extremist sermons and clerics, such as Abu Hamza and Omar Bakri Mohammed.
The internet played a major role in his radicalisation, particularly around his obsession with suicide bombers, including Mohammed Siddique Khan – the leader of the 7/7 London bombings in 2005 which killed 56 people including the attackers.
He became so extreme – bragging to the Muslim community in Bristol about making bombs – that one rang Special Branch to tip them off that he had burn marks on his hands and feet….
The police admitted they had no inkling that Ibrahim was a terror threat….
Isa Ibrahim, formerly known as Andrew Michael, was given an indeterminate prison sentence with a minimum of ten years in July 2009 after being found guilty of making explosives with intent and preparing terrorist acts.
The trial at Winchester Crown Court was told that Ibrahim, then 20, made viable explosives, manufactured a suicide vest and carried out reconnaissance on the Broadmead shopping centre in Bristol.
Detectives believed he was about to launch an attack, possibly targeting the centre’s busy food court.
At the time the police hailed the case as a breakthrough as the key information that identified Ibrahim as a terror threat came from within the Muslim community.
Ibrahim’s extremism did not come to the attention of the authorities until members of a mosque he attended grew worried about his behaviour and contacted Avon and Somerset police….
It is uncommon for a parole application to be refused at this stage and highlights the fact that Ibrahim is still considered a danger to society….
Born Andrew Michael in January 1989, he has a Christian Egyptian father who is an NHS consultant pathologist. His mother, Vicky, is English.
He attended the private Colston’s School in Bristol but was asked to leave in 2002 due to behavioural problems.
His parents transferred him to another Bristol private school in Clifton, Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital, but he was again asked to transfer out.
In Downside Catholic boarding school in Bath, Somerset, he had few friends and was ‘bullied, hit or laughed at’.
It was there he started taking drugs, moving onto Class A crack and heroin and mixing with people outside school, and was eventually suspended.
At the time of his arrest he was a student at the then private City of Bristol College, where he achieved eight GCSEs and an A in English.
Winchester Crown Court was told that Ibrahim had an addictive personality and had moved from an interest in Islam to becoming fixated on extremist sermons and clerics, such as Abu Hamza and Omar Bakri Mohammed.
The internet played a major role in his radicalisation, particularly around his obsession with suicide bombers, including Mohammed Siddique Khan – the leader of the 7/7 London bombings in 2005 which killed 56 people including the attackers.
He became so extreme – bragging to the Muslim community in Bristol about making bombs – that one rang Special Branch to tip them off that he had burn marks on his hands and feet….
The police admitted they had no inkling that Ibrahim was a terror threat….
