A Muslim convert has pleaded guilty to posting threatening comments to a Conservative politician who voted in favour of air strikes against Islamic State in Syria.
Muhammad Muhajid Islam, whose birth name is Craig Wallace, appeared at Hendon Magistrates Court after posting on Facebook that he would “smash” the windows in Charlotte Leslie’s house and “drop a bomb” to “show her what it’s like to murder innocents”.
According to the Guido Fawkes blog, Mr Islam left a string of abusive and insulting messages for Ms Leslie, calling her a “dirty pig-f*cking wh*re” and saying: “I’m going to smash her windows then drop a bomb on her hoyse [sic] while she is tucked up nice and warm in bed.”
Mr Islam pleaded guilty to sending threatening communications, but claimed he was just “venting his anger” because he had not had any sleep as he had been “protesting for two or three days.”
The Kilburn Times says he has a string of previous convictions for violent offences, including possession of a knife, and converted to Islam while serving a five-year sentence for attempted robbery.
Ms Leslie, who represents Bristol North West in the UK Parliament, voted in favour of air strikes last week despite opposing them in 2013, and also voting against intervention in Libya in 2011.
Explaining her change of mind, she wrote: “…in the desperation not to replicate Iraq 2003, we are in danger of seeing parallels where they do not apply, in debating extending UK air-strikes from Iraq, across the border into Syria.”
She said that this was not “starting a war” as Britain is already bombing targets in Iraq and that Islamic State poses a real “threat to us all”.
“The grim truth is that as you are reading this, there are at this moment individuals focused solely on finding new ways to kill us, not because of what we do, but because of who we are.”
Mr Islam has been remanded in custody and is due to be sentenced on 30 December.
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