Safiyya Amira Shaikh, formerly Michelle Ramsden, is a British woman convicted of plotting to bomb

St Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of St Paul the Apostle, is an Anglican cathedral in London, England, the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London in the Church of Engl ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. She is thought to be the first lone

female An organism's sex is female ( symbol: ♀) if it produces the ovum (egg cell), the type of gamete (sex cell) that fuses with the male gamete (sperm cell) during sexual reproduction. A female has larger gametes than a male. Females and ...

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadist organization and unrecognized quasi-state. IS occupied signi ...

(ISIL) bomb plotter in the UK. She was sentenced to

life imprisonment Life imprisonment is any sentence (law), sentence of imprisonment under which the convicted individual is to remain incarcerated for the rest of their natural life (or until pardoned or commuted to a fixed term). Crimes that result in life impr ...

in July 2020.

Early life

Shaikh was born Michelle Ramsden in Hayes, west London, in 1983. A former

company director A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulations ...

, Shaikh

converted to Islam Reversion to Islam, also known within Islam as reversion, is adopting Islam as a religion or faith. Conversion requires a formal statement of the '' shahādah'', the credo of Islam, whereby the prospective convert must state that "there is none w ...

in 2007 after an act of kindness by a

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

family in her neighbourhood, subsequently becoming estranged from her

dysfunctional family In psychology, abnormality (also dysfunctional behavior, maladaptive behavior, or deviant behavior) is a behavioral characteristic assigned to those with conditions that are regarded as dysfunctional. Behavior is considered to be abnormal when i ...

. Changing her name to Safiyya Amira (meaning ''pure'', ''commander'') Shaikh, she became radicalised in 2015, having fallen out with

Muslim leaders Islamic religious leaders have traditionally been people who, as part of the clerisy, mosque, or government, have performed a prominent role within their community or nation. However, in the modern context of Muslim minorities in non-Muslim count ...

who disagreed with her violent interpretations of the faith.

Support for terrorism

By 2016, Shaikh had come under

surveillance Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing, or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as ...

police The police are Law enforcement organization, a constituted body of Law enforcement officer, people empowered by a State (polity), state with the aim of Law enforcement, enforcing the law and protecting the Public order policing, public order ...

and

MI5 MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), officially the Security Service, is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Gov ...

. She was referred at least three times to the deradicalisation programme Prevent, but ceased participating each time. Shaikh became active on "multiple

social media Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...

platforms" and had set up an account named '''GreenB1rds on the

encrypt In cryptography, encryption (more specifically, encoding) is the process of transforming information in a way that, ideally, only authorized parties can decode. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plai ...

ed Telegram Messenger app; encouraging violent attacks in both the UK and abroad, and disseminating pro-ISIL

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded l ...

. She had enjoyed watching ISIL

beheading Decapitation is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and all vertebrate animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood by way of severing through the jugular vein and common ...

videos, glorified

terrorist Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war aga ...

atrocities, had been in contact with convicted British

jihadist Jihadism is a neologism for modern, armed militant Political aspects of Islam, Islamic movements that seek to Islamic state, establish states based on Islamic principles. In a narrower sense, it refers to the belief that armed confrontation ...

Anjem Choudary Anjem Choudary (, aka Abu Luqman; born 18 January 1967) is a British Islamist who has been described as "the face" of militant Islamism or the "best known" Islamic extremist in Britain. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2024 after being ...

, and had listened to

lecture A lecture (from ) is an oral presentation intended to present information or teach people about a particular subject, for example by a university or college teacher. Lectures are used to convey critical information, history, background, theo ...

s by extremist imam

Anwar Al-Awlaki Anwar Nasser Abdulla al-Awlaki (; April 21 or 22, 1971September 30, 2011) was an American-Yemeni lecturer assassinated Drone strikes in Yemen, in Yemen in 2011 by a U.S. government drone strike ordered by President Barack Obama. Al-Awlaki was th ...

Sting, arrest and conviction

Some time in 2019, Shaikh began formulating a plan for a

attack involving various targets, including blowing up a

hotel, planting a bomb in St Paul's, and a suicide bomb attack in the

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or as the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent home counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England. The Undergro ...

. She attempted to contact someone online who could provide her with

explosive An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An ex ...

s. She unwittingly made contact with

undercover police A covert operation or undercover operation is a military or police operation involving a covert agent or troops acting under an assumed cover to conceal the identity of the party responsible. US law Under US law, the Central Intelligence Age ...

officers posing as extremists whom she met on at least one occasion. Inspired by the

2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings On 21 April 2019, Easter Sunday, three churches in Sri Lanka and three luxury hotels in the commercial capital, Colombo, were targeted in a series of coordinated ISIS-related Terrorism, terrorist suicide bombings. Later that day, two smaller ...

,''The Telegraph'' YouTube channel Female Islamic State supporter jailed for plotting to blow up St Paul's Cathedral
/ref> Shaikh had initially planned to plant explosives at St Paul's at

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a Religion, religious and Culture, cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by coun ...

2019, but put it back to Easter 2020. On 18 August 2019, Shaikh was stopped from boarding a flight to

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

Luton Airport London Luton Airport is an international airport located in Luton, England, situated east of the town centre, and is the fourth-busiest airport serving London. The airport is owned by London Luton Airport Limited, a company wholly owned by ...

. Her ticket had been bought for her by subsequently-convicted,

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

-based, ISIL-supporting terrorist Yousra Lemouesset. She was arrested at her home on 10 October 2019, after cancelling a meeting with the undercover officers. During one of her arrest interviews, she claimed she believed that killing people and blowing herself up in the process would be "my way into Heaven". In court, her defence argued that she would not have carried out the attacks, and that she had got

cold feet ''Cold Feet'' is a British comedy-drama television series produced by Granada Television for the ITV (TV network), ITV network. The series was created and principally written by Mike Bullen as a follow-up to his 1997 Comedy Premieres, Comedy ...

. However, after this argument was put forwards, Shaikh was recorded making a phone call from prison, in which she directly contradicted the defence, stating; "I'm so tired about things...I didn't get cold feet yeah...I was ready to go through with it...I wasn't having doubts." Shaikh was given a life sentence, with a non-

parole Parole, also known as provisional release, supervised release, or being on paper, is a form of early release of a prisoner, prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated ...

period of fourteen years.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shaikh, Safiyya Amira 1983 births Living people 21st-century English criminals Converts to Islam Criminals from London Date of birth missing (living people) English female criminals English Islamists English prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment Islamic terrorism in London People from Hayes, Hillingdon Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by England and Wales

Early life

Support for terrorism

Sting, arrest and conviction

See also

References