Mohammad Bashir, 31, has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 17 years for planning a terror attack with his friend Jihad Al-Shamie, who went on a fatal knife rampage at a Manchester synagogue less than two months later.
Bashir drove Al-Shamie, 35, on a 10-hour round trip to conduct hostile reconnaissance at the UK’s Defence Academy in Shrivenham, Swindon, on August 14 last year, Manchester Crown Court heard.
Synagogue attack and sentencing
On October 2, two men were killed as worshippers gathered at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue to mark Yom Kippur. Al-Shamie, who wore a fake suicide belt, was shot dead by police outside the building.
Last month Bashir, of Cheetham Hill, Manchester, pleaded guilty to the preparation of terrorist acts.
Prosecutors said there was no evidence to suggest the defendant had any involvement in the Heaton Park incident but the planned attack on the defence facility was similar in nature and would have caused multiple fatalities.
MoD Shrivenham and the plot
MoD Shrivenham is the home of the UK’s Defence Academy, which provides professional defence and security education. Routinely, up to 4,000 staff, contractors, students and visitors are on site at any given time.
Sentencing Bashir, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said he had become a “firmly committed jihadist” and together with Al-Shamie was “equally engaged and enthusiastic” in planning an attack on a British military target “in which you and he expected to kill and be killed”.
She said: “This was a viable plan to attack the Defence Academy in a broadly similar way to that in which Al-Shamie attacked the synagogue – using handheld weapons and a dummy suicide vest to cause as much bloodshed as possible.”
Evidence and investigation
After the reconnaissance visit, Al-Shamie made an online search for a “fancy dress suicide vest”. Bashir joined an Islamic extremist chat group set up by Al-Shamie in 2024, sending over 2,000 messages in six months, including calls for persecution and murder.
Bashir disposed of his phone after the Defence Academy visit and did not contact police about his contact with Al-Shamie before or after the synagogue attack. He erased content from another phone before returning from a family wedding in Pakistan and was arrested at Manchester Airport.
The judge rejected his claim that he no longer held extremist views, saying: “I consider you remain dangerous.”
Police apology and inquests
Following the synagogue attack, WhatsApp messages and voice notes between the pair were uncovered when police analysed two phones seized from Al-Shamie earlier in 2025. Sir Stephen Watson, Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, issued an apology over the “missed opportunity” to gather intelligence on Al-Shamie before his attack.
Assistant Chief Constable Rob Potts, of Counter Terrorism Policing North West, said the mosque had “fully co-operated” with its investigation. He said: “The way that Al-Shamie and Bashir behaved in the mosque was very secretive and was not done in groups of people.”
The inquests into the deaths of Melvin Cravitz and Adrian Daulby in the synagogue attack are set for spring 2027. The proposed scope will include examining the radicalisation of Al-Shamie and whether the attack could have been prevented.
