- Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale admit killing Lee Rigby in May
- But they denied murder on the basis they were 'soldiers of Allah'
- Jury took just 90 minutes to find them guilty of his murder
- However the killers were cleared of attempted murder of police
- Justice Sweeney said their argument did not 'amount to a defence'
The Muslim converts accused of murdering Lee Rigby were found guilty in just 90 minutes today for carrying out a crime that appalled the world.
Fusilier Rigby was 'mutilated, almost decapitated and murdered' byMichael Adebowale, 22, and Michael Adebolajo, 28, who ambushed him outside military barracks in Woolwich, South East London.
Lee Rigby's bereft family have been forced to relieve his killing and watch footage of the soldier being run down at 40mph and hacked to death because the pair refused to accept they were murderers.
Adebolajo instead claimed their defence was they were 'soldiers of Allah' at 'war' with Britain over its foreign policy.
Guilty: Murderers Michael Adebolajo, who described himself as a 'soldier of Allah', attempted to decapitate Drummer Rigby while Michael Adebowale hacked at his body in the most appalling crime
Brave life lost: The murder trial of Lee Rigby's killers ended today, almost seven months to the day after he was hacked to death in Woolwich
Terrible ordeal: The family of lee Rigby, (pictured left to right) fiancée Aimee West, stepfather Ian Rigby, sister Sara McClure and mother Lyn Rigby arrive at the Old Bailey today
Witnesses said Muslim convert Adebolajo had held the British soldier by the hair and tried to hack off his head 'like a butcher attacking a joint of meat'.
Shocking: A blood-drenched Michael Adebolajo (pictured) told witnesses in a video his attack on Drummer Rigby was an act of revenge - 'an eye for an eye'
The two men, armed with a rusty ‘cowboy’ revolver, then dragged his body into the road so everyone could see their ‘barbarous acts’, the court heard.
Father-of-one Mr Rigby, from Middleton, Rochdale, Lancashire, died from multiple wounds after being attacked shortly after 3pm on May 22.
Mr Rigby was seen returning home to the barracks by train and on foot from his work at the Tower of London.
As he crossed the road he was suddenly hit from behind by a Vauxhall Tigra driven by Adebolajo, leaving him helpless on the ground. Adebowale was in the passenger seat holding the weapons.
He was then mutilated and ‘almost decapitated'.
One bystander said Adebolajo had ‘pure evil’ in his eyes as he hacked the 25-year-old soldier to death with a meat cleaver.
Another described how the men behaved like ‘animals’ as they mutilated their victim.
Crossing: The footage then shows Fusilier Rigby taking a step into the road
Turn: The Vauxhall Tigra begins to veer towards Fusilier Rigby
Before impact: This frame, taken from CCTV footage, shows a Vauxhall Tigra just about to crash into Lee Rigby as he crosses the road
Proud career: Lee Rigby joined the Army in July 2006 and joined the Corps of Drums and was later posted to Afghanistan
The Islamic extremist launched a series of tirades at bystanders, police and medics, even handing a note to one trying to justify his ‘heinous behaviour'.
Mobile phone footage was shown to the court of Adebolajo, 28, clutching a meat cleaver and with his hands dripping in blood, making his speech as the motionless, ‘almost decapitated’ body of Rigby lay nearby.
In the clip, he says: ‘The only reason we’ve killed this person is because Muslims are dying daily by British soldiers.
‘It’s an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. These soldiers go to our land, kill, bomb our people.
‘Remove your governments – they don’t care about you. You think David Cameron is going to get caught in the street when we start busting our guns? You think politicians are going to die?
‘No, it’s going to be the average guy, like you, and your children. So get rid of them – tell them to bring our troops back so we can all live in peace. Leave our land.’
Angels of Woolwich: Gemini Donnelly-Martin, 20, and her mother Amanda (right) talk to Adebolajo while Ingrid Loyau-Kennett (left) talks to the Adebowale as Lee Rigby lies dead in the road
CCTV footage showed the women, later dubbed the ‘angels of Woolwich’, kneeling at Lee Rigby’s side.
Throughout their trial Adebowale, also known as Ismail Ibn Abdullah and Adebolajo, also known as Mujaahid Abu Hamza, were flanked by up seven prison guards.
Jurors were shown footage of them being gunned down by armed police when the defendants tried to attack them.
Adebolajo is seen to fly across the road as shots are fired at him and received a gunshot wound to his upper left bicep.
Shocking: This is the Vauxhall Tigra that was used during the killing of Fusilier Lee Rigby which was shown in court during the trial of Michael Adebolajo, 28, and Michael Adebowale, 22
Evidence: This giant knife was found on the passenger seat of the vehicle that ploughed into Drummer Rigby at 40mph on May 22
Kitchen knife: This knife was also found abandoned at the scene where the soldier was hacked to death
Message: Michael Adebolajo thanked police for shooting him and told them he killed Lee Rigby 'for my God', the prosecution said
Adebolajo later told officers: 'I am a Muslim extremist, this may be the only chance you meet one. Your people have gone to Afghanistan and raped and killed our women. I am seeking retribution I wouldn't stoop so low as to rape and kill women.
'I thank the person who shot me, because it is what Allah would have wanted.'
Adebolajo added: 'I love Allah more than my children.'
The first armed officer on the scene, named only as E48, said Adebowale was shot in the leg and stomach, and when he raised his arm holding the gun they fired twice at his hand and blew off a digit.
‘He raised one of his arms up. I’ve still got a distinct image in my mind of him holding a black revolver in his hand,’ he told the court.
‘The next two shots shot his thumb off. The hand holding the weapon’.
Barbarous: The men waited at the scene, speaking to witnesses and waiting for armed police to come hoping they would be murdered
Attempted murder: Adebowale then sprinted at police with his cleaver, which officers said in court was the moment they thought they might die
Defence: Police shot Adebolajo, pictured on the floor, from their vehicle and then shot Adebowale, right. He tried to raise his gun again so they blew off his thumb
The court was told of the preparations for the murder.
CCTV images showed Michael Adebolajo buying kitchen knives and petrol in the hours before the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby.
The suspected Islamic terrorist, wearing a black beanie hat, was filmed the day before the killing as he paid £24.99 for a set of five knives at Argos.
He also bought a knife sharpener. The next day, he was filmed as he filled his car with petrol.
The day before the murder Adebolajo was captured on CCTV at an Argos store in Lewisham, south east London, buying a five-piece knife set and a sharpener kit
The suspected Islamic terrorist smiles as he pays for his petrol, hours before the attack on Mr Rigby
The Vauxhall Tigra (bottom left) drives along Wellington Street, Woolwich, an hour before the murder
LEE RIGBY: OLD BAILEY TOLD ABOUT LIFE LOST AT WOOLWICH
His first posting was in 2006 to Cyprus. In 2007, he joined the Corps of Drums in the machine gun platoon on a mission to Jordan where he learned to be a machine gunner.
The battalion returned to London in 2008 and he became an 'integral member' of the Corps of Drums.
His public duties included being part of the Household Division’s Beating the Retreat on Horse Guards, a 'special honour for an infantry Corps of Drums.'
In 2009, he joined operations in Helmand Province of Afghanistan, serving as a machine gunner as part of a fire support group.
On his return to Britain, he completed a second tour of public duties and then moved to Germany where he was held in readiness for 'contingency operations' as part of the Small Scale Contingency Battle Group.
In 2011, Fusilier Rigby took up a recruiting post in London where he also assisted with duties at regimental headquarters in the Tower of London and was based at Woolwich barracks.
He was 'callously' murdered on May 22 this year.
But it is believed although the car did not kill him he may not have been conscious when the pair murdered him, the jury was told.
Pathologist Dr Simon Poole examined Fusilier Rigby's body for six hours during the post mortem on May 23.
He said all the injuries were consistent with being hit by a car and attacked with bladed weapons and the cause of death was multiple incised wounds.
Jurors were shown graphic representations of the numerous injuries Fusilier Rigby sustained in the fatal attack.
They included fractures to the left side of his back, consistent with a single high-energy blunt force impact which could have been the impact with the car and stab wounds to the body, neck and head.
The jury then saw videos of Adebolajo as he was interviewed by police after he was released from hospital after he was shot after charging armed officers.
He told them: 'It brings me little joy to approach anyone and slay them.'
During heated exchanges at Southwark Police Station, he attempted to justify the attack on Fusilier Rigby.
'Can you believe me, It gives me no little joy', said Adebolajo, clutching a copy of the Koran in his left hand.
'I am not a man who gets enjoyment in horror movies, seeing blood and gore across the camera lens.'
A forensic psychiatrist who watched said he showed 'no regret or remorse' after the attack but was 'not mentally ill'.
Video evidence: Suspects Adobowale, left, and Adobelajo, right, watch the Adobelajo police interview
Artist's impression: Adobelajo is seen with an injured arm, blanket over his head while been interviewed by a psychiatrist with a Koran visible on table
KILLERS WAVED BROKEN 1920S 'COWBOY' REVOLVER HOPING THEY'D BE SHOT DEAD BY POLICE AND GO TO 'PARADISE' AS MARTYRS
Lee Rigby's murderers had threatened bystanders and police with a 'cowboy' gun from the 1920s that could not be fired.
After he hacked the soldier to death Adebowale's role was the wave the weapon at those who tried to approach them.
The pair had hoped that by having the gun the police would shoot them dead and send them to 'paradise' as martyrs.
The revolver used by the attackers was a 9.4mm KNIL model 91 revolver, manufactured between 1920 and 1922, the court heard.
Testing later revealed it could not be used to fire ammunition and only worked after the moving parts were oiled and lubricated.
Adebowale has lost at least the thumb on his right hand after he waved it at police after already being shot.
When asked when Adebolajo had tried, unsuccessfully, to buy bullets for the gun, he said: ‘I will not be specific, but it was a long time before the incident.’
He said they chose Fusilier Rigby because he was wearing an army-style rucksack, but admitted they were not completely sure that he was in the Army.
‘He raised one of his arms up. I’ve still got a distinct image in my mind of him holding a black revolver in his hand,’ he told the court.
‘The next two shots shot his thumb off. The hand holding the weapon’.
'My religion is everything. I'm a soldier of Allah': Father-of-six Adebolajo 'fell in love' with Al Qaeda and abandoned his young family for murder and martyrdom
Convert: Married father-of-six Michael Adebolajo was arrested in Kenya (pictured) seeking terror training but was allowed to return to Britain and kill Lee Rigby
Michael Adebolajo was once a Christian who would sit and read the Bible by candlelight and wentto church each Sunday with his parents.
But during his trial he told the jury of his conversion to Islam and how 'religion was everything' to him, so much so he abandoned his family to kill Lee Rigby and hoped police would shoot him dead.
The 28-year-old father-of-six, who murdered the Fusilier four days after his youngest child was born, said that having a family was not an excuse not to fight.
'I love Allah more than my children,' he said.
'Allah might throw me in the hellfire' and said his 'brothers' in Al Qaeda were his inspiration to go to 'war' and die.
Adebolajo said he became a 'soldier of Allah', who he believed sent Rigby to him to kill, and that he hoped to be accepted into Paradise as a martyr after his crime.
'My religion is everything,' he said.
'When I came to Islam I realised that... real success is not just what you can acquire, but really is if you make it to paradise, because then you can relax.'
Adebolajo said he converted to Islam in his first year at Greenwich University, and was no longer someone 'who never did think of killing a man'.
He told the jury of eight women and four men: 'My parents used to take us to church every Sunday.
'The memory that sticks in my mind... is probably every New Year's Eve in the evening around 11 o'clock we would gather around in candlelight and read passages from the Bible.
He said that, growing up in Romford, the 'vast majority' of his friends were white British, and one, Kirk Redpath, joined the Army and was later killed in Iraq by an IED.
Adebolajo said: 'I hold Tony Blair responsible for his death.'
Evidence: Woolwich suspect Michael Adebolajo, who was surrounded in the dock by guards, today said he killed Lee Rigby because he is 'at war'
Last seen: Drummer Rigby was seen here getting off a DLR train at Woolwich Arsenal Station, just before he was hacked to death on May 22
He then took the name Mujahid, meaning fighter, in 2002 or 2003, and began to consider himself a soldier.
'When a soldier joins the Army he perhaps has in his head an understanding that he will kill a man at some stage. When I became a mujahid I was aware that perhaps I might end up killing a soldier,' he said.In 2010 he tried to travel to Somalia but was captured in Kenya and brought back to the UK.
MailOnline can now report it was a SAS unit that ‘snatched’ him as he prepared to enter the war-torn countries for terror training and to fight for the Al Qaeda linked terrorism group Al-Shabaab.
But he never made it across the border and Kenyan officials believe he was arrested north-east of the resort of Lamu.
Sources say it was then that MI5 'tried to recruit' Adebolajo to inform them about other extremists for cash.
Referring to the links to the secret services Adebolajo said during the trial: 'There's a lot more to the story but I won't mention that.'
Planning: Adebolajo said today that before he killed Lee Rigby he 'started worshipping Allah and begging him that we strike a soldier and a soldier only'
The killer told the jury that for years he used to attend demonstrations 'in the hope it might make a difference'.
He added: 'I was somewhat naive,' and began to realise he was prepared to do much more.
He was jailed for 51 days for assaulting two police officers at another protest and in his cell he realised 'no demonstration will make a difference'.
Rally: Michael Adebolajo (circled) pictured at a demonstration in Paddington Green, London, in 2007 with Anjem Choudary
Adebolajo had underlined several passages in a document titled 'Extreme Islam' referring to martyrdom, including: 'Allah does not like any drop, more than the drop of blood shed in His way. Martyrdom means transfusion of blood into society'
He also highlighted a passage stating: 'That is why Islam is always in need of martyrs. The revival of courage and zeal is essential for the revival of a nation' and a quotation from Mohammed that 'Above every virtue, there is another virtue, but there is no virtue higher than being killed in the way of Allah.'
Another book featured a chapter titled: 'The virtues of killing a non-believer for the sake of Allah.'
He and Adebowale, who met studying in Greenwich, planned to commit an atrocity and on the night before they killed Lee Rigby both 'prayed to Allah that they would attack a soldier and not a civilian'.
'To be 100 per cent, I don't believe there's a way to know 100 per cent that was a soldier, however there were some steps that we took,' he said.
'We started out on that day and the night previous to that I started worshipping Allah and begging him that ... we strike a soldier and a soldier only.'
When asked what his defence to the charge of murder was, Adebolajo said: 'I'm a soldier. I'm a soldier of Allah and I understand that some people might not recognise this because we do not wear fatigues and we do not go to the Brecon Beacons and train and this sort of thing. But we are still soldiers in the sight of Allah as a mujahid.
The corruption of Lee Rigby's youngest killer: Adebowale went from 'model pupil' to Muslim extremist after his friend was stabbed to death in gang battle
Grinning and carefree with his friends, Michael Adebowale left school in 2007 as a model pupil who was ‘extremely shy and very polite’.During his years at Sherington Primary School, which was also attended by Daniel Day Lewis, and Kidbrooke School in south-east London, he was ‘a lovely boy who knew the difference between right and wrong’, friends said.
But within six years he had become a regular drug user, watched his friend stabbed to death in a gang fight and converted to Islam where he was 'brainwashed' by extremists.
Student: Michael Adebowale on his last day of school in Year 11 in 2007, six years before the 'model pupil' murdered Drummer Lee Rigby
Cold-blooded: Michael Adebowale, 22, of Greenwich, south-east London, with a knife in his hand after he had hacked Lee Rigby to death
MURDER TRIAL DELAYED BECAUSE OF SUSPECT'S 'PSYCHOTIC' STATE
The Lee Rigby murder trial was delayed for more than two weeks over claims that Michael Adebowale was mentally ill, it can be reported for the first time.Adebowale was found unfit due to his 'psychotic state', which included hearing Nigerian voices in his cell at HMP Belmarsh and paranoid fears about being attacked and walking through doorways.
He talked about being influenced by 'djinns' or spirits and was heard saying: 'I think I'm possessed.'
Adebowale also mentioned suicide to a prison officer.
He had to be handcuffed in the dock when he made his first appearance at Westminster Magistrates' Court on May 30 after he assaulted three police officers in 24 hours during interview.
He punched the first officer in the face, spat in the face of the second officer and threw a glass of water over the third.
When Adebowale was transferred to the prison's mental health wing he went on a hunger strike in protest.
The prison psychiatrist, Dr Ian Cumming, approved Adebowale's transfer to Broadmoor Mental Hospital on November 14 - just four days before the trial was listed at the Old Bailey.
Adebowale was then assessed by a series of psychiatrists while at court to check whether he was fit to stand trial.
All four - Dr Neil Boast from Broadmoor, Professor Nigel Eastman, Dr Philip Joseph and Dr Cumming - found he was fit under the 'Pritchard criteria' - meaning he could give instructions to his barrister and was able to give evidence.
However Dr Boast and Professor Eastman advised delaying the trial for between a month and two months.
Adebowale has a history of mental illness going back to 2008 when he was stabbed and saw his friend murdered.
On 26 November the judge, Mr Justice Sweeney, ruled that the trial could go ahead and prosecutor Richard Whittam QC finally opened the case on 29 November.
The trial ground to a halt again on 10 December just before Adebowale was due to give evidence.
Abbas Lakha QC, representing Adebowale, told the court he had concerns about his client's 'wellbeing' and asked for time for him to be re-assessed by the psychiatrists.
But Adebowale revealed that he had been shown a statement from Adebolajo that Adebowale did not need to give evidence.
Dr Joseph added: 'His position was that he wants to give evidence but he is not going to because he has been advised not to.'
In total the trial was delayed by more than 12 court days as a result of the mental health issue.
In his teens he began hanging around with members of the 'Woolwich Boys', who were involved in drug dealing, and regularly went missing from home.
At the age of 16 he was stabbed in the back by a drug-addicted bare-knuckle fighter, Lee James, during a frenzied knife attack at a crack den in Erith, southeast London.
His friend Faridon Alizada, 18, was stabbed to death in the same attack on 5 January 2008 and 16 year-old Ahmed Ahmed spent months in hospital after being stabbed in the spine.
James accused the boys of being supporters of Al Qaeda and claimed they had offered him money to act as a suicide bomber to blow up the nearby Bluewater Shopping Centre.
He screamed: 'You f*****g Somalians, you want to ruin my country, you want to blow up my country, you want to sell drugs in my country. This is what you get.'
Adebowale was told to ‘disappear’ after he was caught up with a local gang known as the Woolwich Boys, and underwent a dramatic change of personality.
He was said to have left the Greenwich area for a year and returned about eight months before Drummer Rigby's death, wearing traditional Islamic dress and a white skull cap, typically worn by Muslim men who have been on the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.
He also gave up alcohol and began distributing radical leaflets near his mother’s home in Greenwich.
Neighbours said his Nigerian-born mother, Juliet Obasuyi, was a probation officer and a ‘hard-working’ Christian woman who raised Adebowale alone after separating from his father.
She is said to believe her son was 'brain-washed' by people who turned him 'against his own family'.
Adebowale was born in Denmark Hill, South London, in May 1991. His father was then a student at Rutherford College in Canterbury, Kent, and the couple were said to have separated soon after the birth.
At school he known as Toby or Tobi, an abbreviation of his second name Oluwatobi.
Luqman Ciise said on Twitter after his arrest: ‘I knew him personally, he was normal, smiling all the time. His name was Toby. Still can’t believe this . . . How did he get radicalised?’
Adebowale was said to have converted to Islam at 19, while studying at Greenwich University, where he met the other Woolwich suspect, Michael Adebolajo.
In May his image became famous around the world, when he was seen holding a bloodied carving knife moments after the killing of Drummer Rigby.
A family friend, who was close to him from the age of five to 16, said she was ‘utterly shocked’.
‘He was genuinely a lovely boy. I never saw him be violent or anyone else be violent to him.
‘He didn’t know how to be rude, I never even heard him swear. Everyone liked him, he was just himself. He didn’t try to act like something he wasn’t.’
During the murder trial it emerged that he stabbed Lee Rigby so many times Adebolajo pulled him away from the soldier because he was dead.
He had been in the passenger seat of the car that ran the soldier down and he carried the knives and gun while Adebolajo drove.
The 22-year-old had his thumb shot off after he and his accomplice charged police and tried to murder them.
Weapon: This battered car was used to crush the soldier against a sign in front. The streak of blood in front shows how they dragged his body into the street
On the night of May 28, before being interviewed, he began clawing at the bandages to his stomach, claiming he was 'mad.'
During the interview he spat at and assaulted police officers and repeatedly had to be restrained.
In early November, two weeks before the trial, Adebowale appeared to become psychotic while in solitary confinement at Belmarsh prison and claimed that he was possessed or influenced by 'djinns' or spirits.
Despite his mental health problems, Adebowale was planning to give evidence in court and only changed his mind after his lawyers showed him a statement from Adebolajo saying he did not need to take the stand.
Trial: The Old Bailey heard Michael Adebolajo, right, sketched with alleged accomplice Michael Adebowale, left, murdered because because 'British soldiers were killing Muslims in the Middle East'
Adebowale did however give a similar account to Adebolajo in his interview with prosecution psychiatrist Dr Philip Joseph and said he thought the gun was loaded.
He said that he believed 'he had been brain-washed by society from a young age' and that the West could have prevented 9/11.
Adebowale admitted stabbing Lee Rigby in the torso three times and explained that he only stopped when he realised the soldier was dead.
'He said the plan was to wait for the armed police and to be martyred,' said Dr Joseph.
'He said he was aware if he was not killed he would be in prison and was disappointed it didn't happen.
'He wasn't trying to kill the police, he said he had a gun which he thought worked and it was to cause a police armed response to come and shoot him.'
Lee Rigby's tearful family forced to watch soldier 'butchered and mutilated' while traumatised witnesses say killers 'were like animals and had pure evil in their eyes'
Jurors were seen sobbing and Lee Rigby's family repeatedly fled the court in tears as the horrific last moments of the soldier's life were played to the court.Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale's refusal to admit murder meant that CCTV of them stabbing him and trying to to hack off his head was repeatedly shown to the Old Bailey.
Lee Rigby’s fiancée, estranged wife and mother fled court in tears after they saw footage of the soldier being run down at 40mph and hacked to death.
Bereft: Rebecca Rigby, left, the estranged wife of Lee Rigby, and Aimee West, right, the fiancée of the Fusilier, all had fled the court in tears
Meanwhile witnesses to the horrific crime described how they had struggled to get on with their lives and had feared they themselves would be murdered.
One bystander said Adebolajo had ‘pure evil’ in his eyes as he hacked Mr Rigby to death with a meat cleaver, holding his hair and 'chopping' at his next like 'it was a tree'.
Terrified witnesses described how the two men armed behaved like ‘animals’ as they mutilated their victim.
Others thought the attackers were trying to resuscitate him as his body rocked from the force of their deadly blows.
Mr Rigby’s grieving widow Rebecca ran from the Old Bailey courtroom in tears as horrific details of his final moments were revealed.
His sister Sara McClure, fiancée Aimee West and other family members sat in silence just yards away from the alleged killers.
Bereaved: Relatives of murdered fusilier Lee Rigby (left to right) stepfather Ian Rigby, mother Lyn Rigby, sister Sara McLure and fiancée Aimee West, who have attended every day of the trial
Tragedy: Drummer Lee Rigby relaxing on leave from the Army in the year before his death
‘I then saw the feet of the man. They were jolting in rhythm with the two men standing over him.’
Describing one of the attackers, she said: ‘He kept ramming the two knives into the man on the floor with so much force.
‘When the knives came up I could see the whole length of the blades which were covered in blood.
‘It was like they were mutilating the person’s body. It seemed like they were trying to remove his organs from his torso. I shouted, "They are stabbing him. They are killing him."
‘I then got out of the car and shouted, "Stop, stop." The man in the hat was staring at me. His expression was blank, but pure evil and his eyes were bulging.’
Miss Armstrong said the two killers threw Mr Rigby’s body into the road ‘like it was a rubbish bag’ as she sat in a car with James Henegan, 39.
‘Lots of people were filming from the bus,’ she added.
‘The men were behaving like animals, prancing around. One was talking and chanting some words, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying.
‘He looked mad, like he had escaped from the mental hospital.’
Speaking in court, Mr Henegan wiped away tears as he told the jury he thought he was going to be shot when one of the men pointed a gun at him.
Emotional: Cheralee Armstrong and James Henegan (pictured outside court) witnessed Lee Rigby's death and Adebolajo's QC told him today: 'My client is very anxious for you to know there was nothing you could have done to stop it'
She said: ‘I could see that his eyes were still open but they looked frozen. He wasn’t moving or making any noise.
‘I thought that he was dead or in shock. I couldn’t see any visible injuries on him.’ Minicab driver John Power said Mr Rigby ‘crumpled’ to the ground after the car crashed into the signpost.
He said: ‘His right hand was chopping at the man’s head with a small chopper or axe. The action was like chopping a tree from left to right.
‘I cannot say exactly where he was striking the man but it was like when someone slaps a person’s face backwards and forwards.’
Grief: Flowers were left at the spot in Woolwich where Drummer Lee Rigby died on May 22 this year
Grief: The father-of-one's funeral was held in July and attended by David Cameron, Boris Johnson and other senior figures
Greenwich Council electrician Thomas Seymour said he ‘assumed it was gang or drug-related’ because of the ‘craziness of what was going on around me.’
‘I thought he looked black but after a short while I realised this was because he was covered in blood,’ he said.
Others saw the men ‘playing to the cameras’ as people filmed the aftermath of the attack on their mobile phones.
Saraj Miah, who was visiting a nearby shop, said he was threatened with a gun when he tried to intervene.
He said: ‘I thought that the two black men with knives were going to kill him. I told them not to kill him. They did not listen to me.’ Shopkeeper Ibrahim Elidemir shut himself, his girlfriend and two customers inside his store as the two men stalked around outside.
‘I was very shocked by this incident and do not know how man could kill another man like this and I could not sleep for two nights,’ he said.
ADEBOLAJO HANDED BLOOD-STAINED NOTE TO WOOLWICH WITNESS
It read: 'To my beloved children know that to fight Allah's enemies is an obligation. The proofs of which are so numerous that but a handful of any of them cuts out the bewitching tongues of the Munafiqeen.
'Do not spend your days in endless dispute with the cowardly and foolish if it means it will delay you meeting Allah's enemies on the battlefield.'Sometimes the cowardly and foolish could be those dearest to you so be prepared to turn away from them.
'When you set out on this path do not look left or right.
'Seek Shaheedala oh my sons so that you might be raised together and if its Allah's decree that you are not to be in the hearts of green birds.
'Then be ready for to enter the University of Joosuf. Sijn. Be patient there and be firm there and inshallah you will meet your Lord with him pleased with you.
'Verily Allah is with those who are patient.
'If I live beyond this day and you find me talking other than this then know that perhaps Allah has left me to stray.
'If you find yourself curious as to why carnage is reaching your own towns then know its simply retaliation for your oppression in our towns.
'Many of your people are aristocrats that directly benefit from invasion of our lands without material loss.
'Whereas the average Joe Bloggs working class man loses his sons when they are killed by our brothers.
'When the heat of battle reaches YOUR local street its unlikely that any of your so called politicians will be at risk or caught in the crossfire so I suggest you remove them.
'Remove them and replace them with people who will secure your safety by the immediate withdrawal from the affairs of the Muslims.
'Muslims will trade with you on fair terms but understand that the days of your international armed robbery is drawing to a close.
'To humble yourselves willingly is better for you.
'May Allah guide your nation to the truth'.
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