London cab driver jailed for killing US soldier with car bomb

A London taxi driver who made bombs targeting coalition troops in Iraq, one of which killed a US soldier, was jailed for life with a minimum of 38 years after being convicted of murder. Anis Sardar, 38, built an improvised explosive device (IED) which killed Sergeant First Class Randy Johnson of 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment when it exploded under his armoured vehicle outside Baghdad on September 27, 2007. Sardar was arrested in London in September 2014 after the US Federal Bureau of Investigation found his fingerprints on two bombs which were planted in the area at the time, although not the one which killed Johnson. Sentencing him at London’s Woolwich Crown Court, the day after a jury found him guilty of murder, Judge Henry Globe told Sardar that the soldier’s death “was a loss for which you are directly responsible”.

I am satisfied that at the material time of the offences you had a mindset that made Americans every bit the enemy as Shiite militias. Both were in your contemplation at all times.

Judge Henry Globe

Sardar’s fingerprints were not on the bomb that killed Johnson but they were found on a range of other, similar devices planted in the surrounding area, along with those of Sajjad Adnan, whose prints were on the fatal device. Inquiries by British police subsequently revealed that Sardar had spent a decade in Syria, returning to Britain less than two months after Johnson died. He claimed he was in Syria simply to learn Arabic, but detectives believe he met up with Adnan and other bombmakers to conspire and make and deploy IEDs in Iraq.

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