Man jailed for 15 years for remote-controlled car terror plot in UK

Iraqi Farhad Salah’s plot was foiled by counter-terrorism police

Farhad Salah was found guilty of preparing to commit an act of terrorism, following an investigation by Counter Terrorism Policing North East.
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A man has been sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for planning a terror attack using a remote-controlled car filled with explosives in the UK.

Farhad Salah’s plot was foiled in the early stages when counter-terrorism police raided his home in Sheffield, northern England.

The 24-year-old, a supporter of ISIS, was found with extremist material including films of murder and torture.

After a six-week trial at Sheffield crown court, a jury found him guilty of preparing acts of terrorism.

Salah, who is originally from Iraq, had hoped to harm others without harming himself, the court heard during the trial.

A second man, chip shop owner Andy Star, 32, of Chesterfield, was also arrested but the jury failed to reach a verdict in his case.

Anne Whyte QC, prosecuting, had previously told the court: "The prosecution allege that he had decided that improvised explosive devices could be made and used in a way here in the UK that spared their own lives preferably but harmed others they considered to be infidels."

Salah sent a message a week before the raid on his home, which read: "My only attempt is to find a way to carry out martyrdom operation with cars without driver, everything is perfect only the programme is left."

Ms Whyte said that Salah, who arrived in the UK in 2010, had expressed a desire to fight in ISIS occupied territory but had not been able to travel to the Middle East because of his unsettled immigration status.

His application for asylum was unresolved at the time of his arrest in December 2017.

The judge Paul Watson QC sentenced Salah to 18 years, including a 15-year jail term with an extended three-year period on licence.