Soldier Lee Rigby’s sister Sara McClure and fiancee Aimee West (right) arrive at the Old Bailey court in central London yesterday.
London Evening Standard/London
One of the men accused of hacking to death soldier Lee Rigby yesterday told an Old Bailey jury of his love for his “brothers” Al Qaeda.
Michael Adebolajo, 28, said he considered himself a warrior. He said he was “disgusted” by the Iraqi war and blamed Tony Blair for the death of one of his friends in the army who was killed in an explosion there.
He and Michael Adebowale, 22, are accused of murdering Fusilier Rigby by running him down with a car and hacking him to death with a meat cleaver and knives near Woolwich Barracks.
Adebolajo sat calmly in the witness box situated between the judge and the jury with his hands resting in his lap. He was already in place dressed in a tunic jacket buttoned to the neck and surrounded by three seated prison officers when the eight woman, four man jury filed into court.
The soldier’s relatives sat a feet away as Adebolajo spoke to the court.
Asked by his barrister David Gottlieb for his name, he replied in a low voice Mujaahid Abu Hamza, although he had been referred to in court by his birth name.
Questioned about Al Qaeda, Adebolajo told the jury: “I love them, they are my brothers, I have never met them but I love them.”
When asked about his attitude to people in authority, he said: “Generally speaking, I don’t get along with them, generally. In most instances I don’t get along with authority, except for my mother and my father.”
As ground rules were set out for his giving evidence, including not speaking over the judge, he said: “I don’t believe in the law.”
The court heard that Adebolajo is married and has six children, including a seven-year-old boy. He said that, growing up in Romford, the “vast majority” of his friends were white British, and one, Kirk Redpath, joined the army and was later killed in Iraq.
Adebolajo said: “I hold Tony Blair responsible for his death.”
He said his favourite teacher at school was the first person to teach him about Adolf Hitler. He told the court it showed him that “there are some very wicked people in the world”. The 28-year-old was raised as a Christian.
The court heard last week that Adebolajo told police he had tried to behead Fusilier Rigby because “the most humane way to kill any creature is to cut the jugular.” In a series of police interviews played to the jury last week, said he and Michael Adebowale had considered the soldier “a fair target”.
Rigby was the first soldier they had seen, Adebowale said when asked why they had chosen to kill him. “It was almost as if I was not in control of myself, I accelerated the car and hit him,” he said in an interview at Southwark police station after his arrest.