UK teen jailed over terror plot

A British court sentenced Safaa Boular Friday to life in prison with no chance of parole for 13 years for planning terror attacks in London with her mother and sister. The trio is Britain's first case of an all-female terror cell.

Prosecutors told London's Central Criminal Court that the 18-year-old began plotting an attack in Britain after authorities thwarted her attempts to travel to Syria to marry a fighter from the so-called "Islamic State" (IS).

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Boular had been planning a gun and grenade assault in online messages with the militant but was arrested in April 2017, along with her sister and mother, after her plan was discovered.

Undercover officials had put the family under surveillance, tracking their movements and listening in on telephone conversations in which they discussed the plot using coded language.  

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'She acted with open eyes'

Defense lawyers argued that the teenager had been manipulated by the IS fighter, who was more than 10 years older, and stressed that she had since renounced her extremist views.

But the judge said there was "insufficient evidence upon which it would be safe to conclude at this stage that the defendant is a truly transformed individual."

"However much she may have been influenced and drawn into her extremism, it appeared she knew what she was doing and acted with open eyes," he said.

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Boular's sister, Rizlaine Boular, 22, was sentenced in June to a minimum term of 16 years, while the mother, Mina Dich, 44, received an extended sentence of 11 years and nine months.

nm/kms (Reuters, AFP, AP) 

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