MICHAEL ADEBOLAJO’S BROTHER CLAIMS LEE RIGBY’S MURDER WAS JUSTIFIED BY ISLAM

Jeremiah Adebolajo

Jeremiah Adebolajo is assuming that there is a war between Islam and the West, and that Muslims in the West are not on the side of the countries in which they live, but on the side of Islam. No one, however, will examine the implications of his statements.

The brother of one of Lee Rigby's murderers said today the attack on the soldier was 'inevitable' and the justification for his death was 'obvious'.

Jeremiah Adebolajo, who like his now-convicted brother Michael is a Muslim convert, predicted another Woolwich-style attack due to Britain's foreign policy.

The 26-year-old, who was banned from some of his brother's trial for security reasons, also said that Fusilier Rigby was a violent man like his sibling.

'I suggest that it won't be the last, simply because of the tactics of the British secret service and foreign policy. For every violent action is a violent reaction,' he told Al Jazeera's Investigations Unit.

'Is it justified for a Muslim to attack a member of an army that is occupying Muslim lands?'

'This is something for the scholars and I think it's obvious to most people,' he added. 'The events to me were inevitable. There was eventually going to be another attack which mentioned foreign policy as its justification.'

In the interview he claimed his brother's actions were a direct consequence of the West's 'war on terror' and likened the killing of Fusilier Rigby to US drone strikes on Muslim countries.

He said: 'I would say, was Lee Rigby a violent individual? Are other British soldiers who go to Afghanistan and Iraq and kill violent individuals?'

'The point he's trying to make is the fact that the geographical location of the battlefield, since this war on terror, has basically disappeared. When we have people driving on roads in Afghanistan and targeted by drones, we have to ask ourselves the question, are these people soldiers? Is this a battlefield?'

He told Al Jazeera his brother was not radicalised, despite associations with radical preachers and the now disbanded group al Muhajiroun.

He said: 'It's a very tidy narrative to assume that we have this young Christian boy who was radicalised by these bogeymen-like figures - Anjem Choudary, Omar Bakri Muhammad - and while he went on this conveyor belt, as it were, of radicalisation and then the events of Woolwich happened. It's just not true.'

Jeremiah claimed the British security services were aware of alleged mistreatment of his brother by Kenyan police while he was in custody in 2010 and added: 'They were complicit in allowing him to be interrogated with the means of interrogation that the Kenyans chose. Questions are to be asked about why they allowed the Kenyans to torture a British citizen.'

Jeremiah said he has been approached by an MI5 officer assigned to his brother, adding the security services were 'putting a lot of pressure' on Adebolajo and were 'really disrupting his life' right up to 'a few months before' the Woolwich attack....