A former public schoolboy and Muslim convert who planned to blow himself up using a suicide vest has made so little progress in jail that he has been denied a face-to-face parole hearing.
Isa Ibrahim, known as Andrew Michael in his school days, was sentenced to life i prison with a minimum of ten years in July 2009 after being found guilty of making explosives with intent and preparing terrorist acts.
The trial at Winchester Crown Court was told that Ibrahim, then 20, made viable explosives, manufactured a suicide vest and carried out reconnaissance on the Broadmead shopping centre in Bristol.
Detectives believed he was about to launch an attack, possibly targeting the centre’s busy food court.
At the time the police hailed the case as a breakthrough as the key information that identified Ibrahim as a terror threat came from within the Muslim community.
Isa Ibrahim was sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum of ten years, for plotting to blow himself up using a “suicide vest” and home-made explosives in July 2009
Ball bearings, nails and screws found in Ibrahim’s flat in Bristol
Ibrahim’s extremism did not come to the attention of the authorities until members of a mosque he attended grew worried about his behaviour and went to Avon and Somerset police.
The student was given an indeterminate sentence with no end date, meaning Ibrahim will stay in prison until the Parole Board is satisfied that he is no longer a threat to society.
The Parole Board refused his appeal based on information contained in his jail files put together by prison officers, psychologists and doctors.
It is uncommon for a parole application to be refused at this stage and highlights the fact that Ibrahim is still considered a danger to society.
He had no chance to argue his case to the three-person panel, which would normally take place via a video link from prison.
A spokesperson for the Parole Board said: ‘We can confirm that a panel of the Parole Board refused the release of Isa Ibrahim following a paper hearing. The panel also refused to recommend a move to open prison.
‘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.’
MailOnline understands that Ibrahim, now 34, was told in May 2022 that he would have to stay behind bars. He will be eligible for another hearing in 2024.
By that time, he will have spent 15 years in prison.
Ibrahim was a privileged schoolboy whose transformation into a would-be suicide bomber was a wake-up call for the authorities and the wider Muslim community.
Born Andrew Michael in January 1989, he has a Christian Egyptian father who is an NHS consultant pathologist. His mother, Vicky, is English.
He attended the private Colston’s School in Bristol but was asked to leave in 2002 due to behavioural problems.
His parents transferred him to another Bristol private school in Clifton, Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital, but he was again asked to transfer out.
In Downside Catholic boarding school in Bath, Somerset, he had few friends and was ‘bullied, hit or laughed at’.
It was there he started taking drugs, moving onto Class A crack and heroin and mixing with people outside school, and was eventually suspended.
At the time of his arrest he was a student at the then private City of Bristol College, where he achieved eight GCSEs and an A in English.
Winchester Crown Court was told that Ibrahim had an addictive personality and had moved from an interest in Islam to becoming fixated on extremist sermons and clerics, such as Abu Hamza and Omar Bakri Mohammed.
The internet played a major role in his radicalisation particularly around his obsession with suicide bombers, including Mohammed Siddique Khan, the leader of the 7/7 London bombings in 2005, which killed 56 people including the attackers.
He became so extreme – bragging to the Muslim community in Bristol about making bombs – that one rang Special Branch to tip them off that he had burn marks on his hands and feet.
Avon and Somerset police arrested Ibrahim at his council flat in Coombe Paddock, Westbury-on-Trym, a Bristol suburb, on April 17th, 2008.
They discovered a bomb factory, including a biscuit tin full of Hexamethylene triperoxide diamine (HMTD), a highly explosive substance that can be made from household ingredients.
Other items recovered included a functioning detonator and a half-finished suicide vest hanging behind a door.
Footage was also recovered from Ibrahim’s mobile phone which showed him testing out his explosives at home.
Evidence showed Ibrahim had been plotting for years to detonate bombs in The Galleries in Bristol city centre, near where he sold the Big Issue.
He had been researching bombing material so much that the police found the floor of his flat was laden with explosive material.
Ibrahim was known as Andrew Michael before he converted to Islam
Police found a homemade suicide vest in Ibrahim’s council flat Coombe Paddock, Westbury-on-Trym, a Bristol suburb, on April 17 2008
The police admitted that they had no inkling that Ibrahim was a terror threat.
Detective chief inspector Matt Iddon of Avon and Somerset police said years later he was ‘completely unknown’ and Ibrahim was ‘not on any security services radar’.
At his 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 prison 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 it for video website.
Trial judge Mr Justice Butterfield gave him an indeterminate sentence with a minimum of 10 years.
He told Ibrahim: ‘You were, in my judgement, 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.’
