So the guy who butchered the British Soldier wanted his sentence reduced. He had to make an appeal to get a lesser sentence but it was turned down. How on earth did he think he can get a lesser sentence after taking a life he cant create. Here is how guardian reported it
The widow of Fusilier Lee Rigby has said she is “relieved that this is over and justice has been done” after three judges rejected appeals by his killers, Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale.
Adebolajo’s argument that his murder conviction should be quashed because “he killed a soldier in the course of fighting a war” was dismissed as “hopelessly misconceived” by the lord chief justice, Lord Thomas.
Adebolajo and Adebowale were jailed in February for murdering 25-year-old Rigby outside Woolwich barracks in south-east London in May 2013. The British-born Muslim converts ran the soldier down in a car, breaking his vertebra and knocking him unconscious, before trying to decapitate him with a meat cleaver and knives.
Amid tight security in the court of appeal, Rigby’s widow, Rebecca, sobbed throughout the three-hour hearing as details of the murder were read out. She fled in tears when the judges rejected the appeals. Outside court, she said: “I would like to thank everyone who made today’s verdict possible. We are relieved that this is over and justice has been done. I’d like to thank everyone for their continued support over the last 18 months and hope I can now build a future for my son Jack and ensure his [Lee’s] memory lives on.”
Rigby’s fiancee, Aimee West, 24, said: “I am relieved and thankful with the outcome of today’s hearing. I hope that this is the last we will hear from them both so that I can focus on rebuilding my life and keeping Lee’s memory alive.”
Adebowale appeared via video link from Broadmoor psychiatric hospital, where he was taken after a deterioration in his mental wellbeing at HMP Belmarsh. Adebolajo refused to attend the hearing via video link from HMP Frankland in County Durham.
Adebolajo’s barrister, David Gottlieb, said his murder conviction was wrong because the trial judge, Mr Justice Sweeney, had incorrectly explained the definition of Queen’s Peace to the jury. “He directed the jury that it meant no more than the deceased was not engaged in a war or rebellion against the state, in this case the United Kingdom. In this case, the defendant [Adebolajo] has consistently claimed that the reason he killed Fusilier Rigby was solely because he was a serving British soldier,” Gottlieb said.
“According to [Adebolajo], he killed a soldier in the course of fighting a war. He said he had no intention of harming or killing anyone else. It was part of his plan, according to his police interviews and evidence, that after the killing he would wait at the scene until an armed response unit arrived with the intention of being himself killed in what he described as an act of martyrdom.”
The judges took less than a minute to reject Adebolajo’s application to appeal against his conviction.
Abbas Lakha QC, for Adebowale, argued that his client’s 45-year prison term was “manifestly excessive” and should be cut. The court heard that Adebowale’s psychiatric condition had worsened since his imprisonment in February, even though he was deemed fit to stand trial at several stages last year.
“For a 22-year-old man, now 23, a minimum term of 45 years … is a crushing sentence in ordinary circumstances,” Lakha said. “But where it is a young man suffering from a mental crisis it is a doubly crushing sentence.”
This argument, too, was dismissed by the judges who said they were satisfied that Sweeney had taken all psychiatric evidence into account when deciding term.
Shaven-headed and with a thick beard, Adebowale was impassive when the judges refused his appeal but had earlier be seen laughing and smirking.
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