Lee Rigby murder trial: Fusilier’s widow walks out as court is shown video tirade by defendant Michael Adebolajo
Footage of police interviews with 28-year-old shows him saying: ‘may Allah forgive me if I acted in a way that is displeasing to Him’
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A self-proclaimed extremist claimed to be a “soldier of Allah” in a long-running war between Muslims and Britain during a rambling and sometime angry justification of the bloody killing of Fusilier Lee Rigby, a court heard.
In more than an hour of recorded police interviews, Michael Adebolajo railed against a “corrupt” political leadership and overseas British military action but asked for Allah's forgiveness if what had happened had been “displeasing” to him.
Mr Adebolajo, 28, told police that it gave him “little joy” to slay anyone but walked out of one of the interviews when he was asked directly who was responsible for killing Mr Rigby, who was mown down at high speed by a car then before his body was mutilated by two attackers.
“I have no patience for men like this,” he said referring to one of his police interviewers. “I'm finished with this guy.”
During interviews twice interrupted when he walked out, Mr Adebolajo said that Mr Rigby “was struck in the neck with a sharp implement and it was sawed until his head, you know, became almost detached”.
The 28-year-old, who covered his head with a blue shawl and occasionally touched a Koran before him on a table, added: “May Allah forgive me if I acted in a way that is displeasing to him.”
He went on: “It brings me little joy to approach anybody and slay them. Can you believe me? I am not a man who gains enjoyment from watching horror movies.”
A forensic psychiatrist, Tim McInerney, said that Mr Adebolajo was fit to be questioned, had shown no remorse and was keen to talk about what had happened, the court heard.
During the interviews - recorded ten days after the killing - Mr Adebolajo said he was only talking to officers to prevent such an event from happening again. The soldier's widow Rebecca walked out when they were played in court.
He angrily pointed at his interviewers and demanded that their questions should be framed to “benefit Lee Rigby's family and ensure the safety of the British people”. He claimed to have been “sickened” by the triviality of some of the questioning, the jury of eight women and four men were told.
He compared a British soldier to a “common man, usually working class, who mistakenly thinks he is serving his country by going to a Muslim land and committing mass murder.”
While praising nurses who treated him for his gunshot wounds when he was arrested, and acknowledged being given free legal advice, Mr Adebolajo described the country's leaders as ruling in a “wicked, corrupt, selfish and oppressive manner.”
He berated the “eloquent” men who he said developed oratory skills in institutions such as Eton and Oxford University before going on to “use it for evil.”
Mr Adebolajo said he was “particularly disgusted by David Cameron, the Miliband brothers and what's-his-name, Nick Clegg” and berated the wickedness of former Prime Minister Tony Blair who he said “used the magic of the tongue to dodge very important questions”.
He compared the House of Commons to a “boys' club” and said the practice of politicians gathering to pay tribute to soldiers who died in Afghanistan was “disgusting”.
And he said that he struggled to sleep at night because Britain was “associated with the murder, pillaging and rape of innocent people” in Muslim countries. “In these lands there are soldiers of Allah. Allah encourages them to kill anybody who takes it upon his or her self to come to that land...wishing to rape, to steal and pillage.”
Mr Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, 22, both deny murdering Lee Rigby on May 22 near Woolwich Barracks in southeast London.
The case continues