BBC- A Muslim convert has been jailed for life and must serve a minimum of 18 years after launching a failed suicide bomb attack on a restaurant in Devon.

Nicky Reilly, 22, was the only person injured when he accidentally set off his home-made nail-bomb in a toilet of Exeter’s Giraffe restaurant last May.

He later admitted attempted murder and preparing an act of terrorism.

Police believe the Plymouth man, who has learning difficulties, was “preyed upon and radicalised” by others.
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Reilly – who converted to Islam between 2002 and 2003 – had admitted the charges last October, but sentencing was delayed to allow doctors to assess his mental state.
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Reilly came from a “loving and fairly normal family unit” but was “seduced” by a cause he “wrongly and almost fatally interpreted and probably never understood”, said the judge.
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Devon and Cornwall Police had earlier said Reilly – who had changed his name to Mohammad Rashid Saeed Alim – had been “preyed on, radicalised and taken advantage of”.
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Before sentencing on Friday, Kim Reilly told BBC News that her son was “very sorry and very remorseful”.

“He’s sorry to the people of Exeter and those in the cafe that day.”

Prior to his failed suicide bombing, Reilly left a note saying: “I have not been brainwashed or indoctrinated. I am not insane.”

Reilly claimed he was simply doing “what God wants from his mujahideen”.

“Everywhere Muslims are suffering at the hands of Britain, Israel and America. We are sick of taking all the brutality from you,” he wrote.

The note attacked drunkenness and sexual immorality as “unacceptable to Allah and the true religion Islam”.
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Officers travelled to Pakistan in their search for two unidentified people who encouraged Reilly after contacting him via an extremist website.