A man has been sentenced at the Old Bailey to a total of 30-years’ imprisonment after a joint investigation between the Metropolitan Police, MI5 and FBI foiled his plot to kill the Prime Minister.

As part of his intended attack, Naa’imur Rahman, 20 (23.07.97) of north London, sought to detonate a bomb in the vicinity of Downing Street. Rahman planned to use the ensuing chaos to gain access to Downing Street so that he could assassinate the Prime Minister, Theresa May.

However, unbeknown to Rahman, as he was putting his plans together he was confiding with a network of online role-players from the Met Police, MI5 and the FBI who, in turn, introduced him to real-world undercover police officers from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command.

Rahman went on to meet these officers on a number of occasions, culminating in his arrest in November 2017 shortly after Rahman collected what he believed to be a homemade bomb, but was in fact a harmless replica.

Met Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Dean Haydon, who is the Senior National Coordinator for Counter Terrorism in the UK, said: “Rahman is an extremely dangerous and determined individual.

“Rahman’s target was the Prime Minister but he had no qualms about killing innocent bystanders in the process of reaching her. In fact, at one point he told a covert counter terrorism officer that even if he could not reach the Prime Minister, he just wanted to strike fear into people.

“This case demonstrates the strength of the cooperation between the UK’s intelligence agencies and the FBI. As a result, we were able to disrupt Rahman’s plans and ensure that a terrorist attack was prevented.”