Army Cadet Beheading Threat Man Caught And Charged by Police After Two Week Hunt

A man has been charged after threatening two female Army Cadets with beheading and will appear in court on Monday in Gateshead.

It comes the same week as teenage Muslim convert Brustholm Ziamani was found guilty of plotting to behead a soldier in the style of his terrorist idols, Drummer Lee Rigby killers Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale. Ziamani was arrested in Whitechapel, East London, in August carrying a rucksack with weapons wrapped in an Islamic flag.

Marias Dura, a Romanian of no fixed address, was charged after allegedly shouting at the two teenage cadets as they left an Army Reserve centre in Tyneside on 21 January the Guardian reports.

The girls said a car with two men inside approached the girls and asked if they were in the Army. They then issued threats which were said to be “graphic and nasty” including a comment about beheading.

The driver was described as black or Asian, in his 40s, of plump or muscular build, with a black bushy beard and dark clothes and the passenger black or Asian, in his 30s.

Following a police investigation, the two men left the country and Northumbria police alerted Interpol. Dura was arrested in the UK after returning to the country, police said.

After the incident was reported, police carried out extra patrols in the area but it has raised alarm throughout the country about the continued threats to Armed Forces personnel after a decade of positive promotion of Military personnel.

The 2007 Command Paper reversed previous guidelines about soldiers not appearing in uniform outside of their barracks and instead recommended the creation of an Armed Forces Day and Homecoming Parades which were always well attended by flag waving wellwishers from the Battalion’s home town.