EXCLUSIVE Toff terrorist could be let out from prison: Parole board is considering release of ex-public schoolboy who plotted suicide bombing on shopping centre

Daily Mail​

4 hours ago

One of Britain's most dangerous terrorists could soon be back on the streets, MailOnline can reveal.
Former public schoolboy Andrew Michael, known as Isa Ibrahim after he converted to Islam, was jailed aged 20 when he was found to be plotting a suicide bomb attack on Bristol's Broadmead shopping centre.
However, far from having a tough upbringing, the terrorist who idolised Osama Bin Laden was the toff son of Christian church-going parents and lived in a £1million gated mansion in Bristol.
His father Dr Nassif Ibrahim was an Egyptian-born NHS consultant pathologist at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol and his elder brother Peter graduated from Jesus College, Oxford, and became a software engineer.
But Ibrahim fell under the spell of Muslim radicals such as the 7/7 bombers, Abu Hamza and Omar Bakri Muhammad after watching recordings of their speeches on the internet and converted to Islam.
He was unknown to police, and cops only arrested him in 2008 'a matter of hours or days' before he was about to blow himself up with a suicide vest created using internet instructions after a tip-off from the local Muslim community.
On July 16, 2009, he was convicted at Winchester Crown Court of making an explosive with intent to endanger life or cause serious injury and preparation of terrorist acts. He was sentenced to an indeterminate prison sentence with a minimum term of ten years.
Only three years ago in 2022, he was denied parole on the basis that he was still a danger to society.
The now-36-year-old could soon taste freedom after the Secretary of State for Justice Shabana Mahmood referred Ibrahim's case to the Parole Board, which is considering whether to release him.
A spokesperson for the Parole Board said: 'We can confirm the parole review of Isa Ibrahim has been referred to the Parole Board by the Secretary of State for Justice and is following standard processes.
'Parole Board decisions are solely focused on what risk a prisoner could represent to the public if released and whether that risk is manageable in the community.
'A panel will carefully examine a huge range of evidence, including details of the original crime, and any evidence of behaviour change, as well as explore the harm done and impact the crime has had on the victims.
'Members read and digest hundreds of pages of evidence and reports in the lead up to an oral hearing.
'Evidence from witnesses such as probation officers, psychiatrists and psychologists, officials supervising the offender in prison as well as victim personal statements may be given at the hearing.
'It is standard for the prisoner and witnesses to be questioned at length during the hearing which often lasts a full day or more. Parole reviews are undertaken thoroughly and with extreme care. Protecting the public is our number one priority.'
'A decision on Ibrahim's case is expected over coming weeks.'
Brought up in a luxury gated mansion in the leafy Bristol suburb of Frenchay, Ibrahim seemed set for a prosperous life.
But his unruly behaviour and developing drug habit began to take their toll.
By the time he was arrested, Ibrahim was a regular hard-drug user who was expelled from three different private schools and had first experimented with cannabis when he was just 12 years old.
Ibrahim was first expelled from £19,065-a-year Colston's School before being thrown out of the £9,885-a-year Queen Elizabeth Hospital school in Bristol aged 12 for smoking cannabis.
He moved to writer Auberon Waugh's former school, the £24,141-a-year strict Roman Catholic Downside School in Bath as a boarder, but was expelled for drinking alcohol in the dorm and going missing.
He ended up at the £7,500-a-year Bristol Cathedral School, where he passed nine GCSEs with good grades.
While a student at the City of Bristol College, he made explosives and a suicide vest in his flat and carried out extensive surveillance at Broadmead shopping centre in Bristol, where he planned to cause the maximum damage by using nails and ball bearings in his bomb.
He bought the main components for the suicide bomb from high street shops, including branches of Boots.
A bomb disposal expert stands by an area cordoned off for a controlled explosion outside Ibrahim's home in 2008
Thirty of Ibrahim's neighbours were evacuated and a controlled explosion was carried out following the raid at 2am on April 18, 2008
Ibrahim was only caught after members of the Al-Baseera mosque in Bristol saw injuries he suffered while testing the explosive and, concerned about his extreme views and what he may be planning, told police that a white Muslim convert was acting suspiciously.
It is believed to have been the first time that the Muslim community had played a central role in bringing a potential terrorist bomber to justice.
When police entered his flat in Comb Paddock, Bristol, police found between 125 and 245g of the unstable explosive Hexamethylene Triperoxide Diamine, also known as HMTD, the same substance used in the July 7, 2005 London bombings.
He had stored it in a McVitie's Family Circle biscuit tin in Ibrahim's fridge.
There was so much explosive powder in his flat that the kitchen floor crackled under their feet.
Ibrahim had also made an electrical circuit capable of detonating the explosive at short range.
Police also found a half-made suicide vest and films of Ibrahim testing the explosives on the floor of his flat.
Ibrahim made the HMTD and his suicide vest entirely through instructions from the internet.
Soldiers from the Royal Logistic Corps also had to carry out controlled explosions at his home.
There was also a large amount of radical literature in the flat and when he was arrested the book Milestones by Sayyid Qutb was in his rucksack. The book advocates jihad and radical Islam.
Detective Chief Inspector Matt Iddon said: 'It soon became very, very clear that his kitchen had become an explosive laboratory.'
DCI Iddon said Ibrahim had planned to set his suicide vest off in a crowded area of the shopping centre.
He said: 'He identified that the food court was a dense area. It's full of families – husband, wives, children, groups of young friends – relaxing and enjoying the day.
'He intended to blow himself up there.'
He added: 'He was not on any security services radar. He was completely unknown.'
When he was arrested, Ibrahim told officers: 'My mum's going to kill me. Am I going to be on the news?'
His father Nassif, mother Victoria and brother Peter were in court every day for the trial 16 years ago.
At Ibrahim's trial, where he denied the charges, he said he had trouble interacting and making friends, and admitted even as an adult he talked to teddy bears.
Even as he was detained in Belmarsh prison, he thought it would 'give him status' to be in the same jail as the likes of hate cleric Abu Hamza.
He claimed he had no intent to harm but just wanted to set the vest off and film.
Trial judge Judge Mr Justice Butterfield told the terrorist: 'You were, in my judgment, a lonely and angry young person at the time of these events, with a craving for attention.
'You are a dangerous young man, well capable of acting on the views you held in the spring of 2008.'
His mother fled the court in tears as the sentence was passed and since he was jailed his family have regularly visited him in prison.