by Oge Okonkwo
Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale have been sentenced today in Old Bailey, London.
Adebolajo was given a whole-life jail term and Adebowale was sentenced to 45 years in prison – meaning he could be back on the streets by the time he is aged 67.
According to reports, immediately after the sentencing,Lee Rigby’s murderers began hurling abuse at the judge and fighting with prison guards, yelling ‘Allahu Akbar’ and ‘You (Britain) and America will never be safe’ as they were about to be jailed in London.
Daily Mail reports:
Demand for justice: The bereft family of Lee Rigby wore t-shirts in his honour today. (Left to right) Stepfather Ian Rigby, his mother Lyn Rigby and sisters Sara McClure and Chelsea Rigby walked into the Old Bailey together
Brave life lost: Lee Rigby was walking innocently along a Woolwich road towards his barracks when he was run down and butchered
The killers had to be pinned to the ground by nine security guards and Rigby’s family began sobbing as they watched the incident in horror, being handed tissues by court staff.
The prisoners were dragged down to the cells – one head first – and were sentenced in their absence by judge Justice Sweeney.
The extremists could be heard banging on the cell ceilings after being taken down as the judge condemned their ‘barbaric’ murder.
Earlier, the bereft widow of Rigby told the judge who will sentence his killers that their child will grow up seeing images of his dead father that ‘no son should have to endure’.
Fusilier Rigby, 25, was ‘mutilated, almost decapitated and murdered’ by Adebowale and Adebolajo, who ambushed him outside his barracks in Woolwich, south-east London, on May 22 last year.
Rebecca Rigby said in her victim impact statement: ‘The one thing that overrides everything is that I know my son (Jack) will grow up and see images of his dad that no son should ever have to endure, and there is nothing I can do to change this.’
She spoke out after her husband’s family arrived at the Old Bailey wearing matching t-shirts demanding justice for the murdered soldier as the Muslim converts face life in jail.
Moving: The only son of Lee Rigby, Jack, holds the hands of the loved-ones as he attended his father’s funeral in July. His mother Rebecca told the judge today that he will grow up to see images of his father’ horrific murder
Protection: Drummer Rigby’s family have said they will ‘focus on building a future for his son Jack’, pictured here with his mother
In her statement, read by the prosecution, Mrs Rigby went on: ‘I felt like I didn’t want to go on.
‘When you wave someone off you accept that there is a chance you will never see them again. You do not expect to see this on the streets of the UK.
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Wife: Lee Rigby’s widow Rebecca was at the Old Bailey for the sentencing of his two killers
‘Lee will never be forgotten. We will always love him and miss him every day.’
The court also heard part of a statement from the soldier’s stepfather, Ian Rigby.
He said: ‘After all he had been through in Afghanistan all Lee was doing was just walking through London. Just seeing on the television and seeing the violence of it you just can’t comprehend. You take it all in and it doesn’t click in your head, it is like being somewhere else.
‘You’re watching it without being actually there.’
Prosecutor Richard Whittam QC said that the family’s lives had been devastated.
He said: ‘The scale of the impact on them of the nature of the murder of Lee Rigby in the circumstances made so public during the trial and after such a killing causing a son to pre-decease his parents and stepfather and leave those others who loved him without a husband or a soul mate is too obvious to set out in detail.
‘He had, as your lordship knows, a young son. All their lives have been irreparably changed for the worse.’
In December the two fanatics were found guilty of butchering the father-of-one but their sentencing was delayed until today after Strasbourg judges said that whole-life tariffs are unlawful.
But last week senior British judges defied the European Court of Human Rights ruling, leaving Judge Justice Sweeney free to decide whether Adebolajo and Adebowlale should die behind bars.
Adebolajo’s QC told the court that sentencing his client to life without parole would make him a ‘martyr’, while Adebowale’s legal team said a whole-life term would be ‘inhuman’ for a man that age.
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