Muslim convert planned to attack mosque, police and military, terror trial told

Jason Savage, 35, from Small Heath, Birmingham, denies a single count of engaging in conduct in preparation for terrorist acts on or before March 14 last year.

Birmingham Crown Court was told Savage, of Fourth Avenue, was arrested shortly after engaging in online messaging with someone he did not know was an undercover officer, saying he was waiting to see what “opportunities come to present itself”.

Jurors also heard that Savage had taken screenshots of the West Midlands Police headquarters, police stations in Perry Barr and Stechford and various military locations in Birmingham, and told the undercover officer he was putting his neck on a “chopping block”.

Opening the case for the Crown on Tuesday, prosecutor Peter Ratliff alleged that Savage had planned to commit and film an attack.

He told the court the defendant converted to Islam at some point in the 2010s and followed an “extreme and violent” part of the Salafi movement of which organisations such as Al-Qaeda and Islamic State were “particularly notorious” examples.

Prosecutors allege that Savage carried out reconnaissance with a view to attacking an Islamic cleric, bookstore and mosque in the Small Heath area, whose approach to the Salafi movement was “entirely at odds” with his own.

The mosque, bookstore and publishing house advocated a strand of Salafism that stresses the importance of non-involvement in social or political activism, the court heard, while the cleric was an “outspoken critic” of Islamist terrorism, arguing that it was entirely incompatible with the true essence of Islam, the court heard.

Taking the jury through social media posts and other messages alleged to have been written by the defendant, Mr Ratliff said: “One of those he was in contact with was, although he didn’t know it, an undercover officer.

“A key feature of the defendant’s words and writings was his real disapproval of ‘disbelievers’ – but particularly those he considered were false followers of Islam.”

By February 2024, the court heard, Savage was referring to watching knife-fighting techniques on YouTube and posted a video of Osama Bin Laden.

Mr Ratliff said Savage referred to how a mosque he is accused of filming outside needed “flattening” and spoke about how his alleged targets were to be “hunted down”.

It is also alleged that at some point in early 2024, he broke the handle off a kitchen knife and replaced it with cloth, before changing his social media status to “Lone Wolf”.

On March 11, Savage is said to have gone to the mosque and bookstore and recorded three mobile phone videos, speaking of “the best way to get away from” the area and the direction that “police will probably come from”.

He is also accused of saying he needed to “catch man” before he got there as he was sure his target’s supporters would “put up a fight for their sheikh”.

Two days later, the jury heard, Savage made internet searches about homemade firearms and ammunition, including pipe guns, nail guns, firing pin mechanisms and shell casings.

The charge against Savage alleges that his conduct included research into the manufacture of components of firearms and the “lethal use of knives”.

The alleged preparation is also said to have included “reconnaissance of a potential attack location” at the mosque and “research of potential targets, including members of the military and West Midlands police force”.

The trial, expected to last for three weeks, continues.