EDL News

The leader of the far-right English Defence League has denied his group is behind an arson attack at an Islamic centre, which was daubed with the letters EDL.

The fire in London's Muswell Hill last week came amid heightened tensions in the wake of the killing of Drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich, with an increase in the number of attacks on mosques and Islamic centres.

EDL leader Tommy Robinson told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "If something was set fire and someone wrote David Cameron on the side of it, does it mean he did it?

"It just seems ridiculous to me and I think everyone can see through it that that's done to make it look like the English Defence League.

Asked if he would condemn attacks by his members on Muslims, he replied: "Utterly condemn it, disgraceful."

Read: Islamic centre attack in Muswell Hill

• UK
• EDL
• Tommy Robinson

There were angry scenes in Court 12 at the Old Bailey when six men were sentenced for their part in the attempted plot to attack an EDL march in Dewsbury.

Two members of the English Defence League, including leader Tommy Robinson, shouted "God Save The Queen" and the defendants and some supporters in the public gallery shouted back "Allah u Akbar".

They were all bundled out of court by officers as the taunting continued. The defendants raised their arms in salute as they we led away from the dock.

One woman, thought to be a mother of one of the six, burst into sobs.

• UK
• EDL
• Terrorism

Six Islamist extremists who plotted an attack on an English Defence League rally have been jailed for terms ranging from 18 years and 9 months to 19 and a half years at the Old Bailey.

• UK
• EDL
• Terrorism

Six men due to be sentenced today over a planned attack on a rally staged by the English Defence League had worked themselves up into "a very great state of fear", Danny Friedman QC said defending Mohammed Hasseen. He told the court:

It would be wrong to say that the fear and anger that these men and others felt towards the EDL was completely irrational and unfounded.

Young men reach to ideology to explain away fear and loathing about their communities being attacked and that's what we submit happened here.

• UK
• EDL
• Terrorism

A planned attack on an English Defence League rally was a reaction to the far-right groups' "calculated insults" of Islam, a court heard today.

Sentencing of six Islamic extremists who hatched the plot to target the gathering in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, last summer continued at the Old Bailey.

Joel Bennathan QC for Omar Khan said:

The EDL stage rallies in what they perceive, rightly, to be areas with large Muslim populations. They are intimidating when they do so.

They are obviously and very deliberately insulting to any Muslims. One doesn't need a degree in theology to have spotted the fact that to a Muslim a personal insult to the Prophet Mohammed is a very serious matter.

They are intimidating, they are insulting and they are provocative.

Read more: Six to be sentenced for EDL rally attack plot

• UK
• EDL
• Terrorism

Dozens of EDL supporters gathered outside the Old Bailey as 6 men who planned a bloody attack on an EDL rally were sentenced.

Jewel Uddin, 27, Omar Mohammed Khan, 31, Mohammed Hasseen, 24, Anzal Hussain, 25, Mohammed Saud, 23, and Zohaib Ahmed, 22, admitted planning the attack at a hearing on April 30

Read: Gang of 6 men plead guilty to attack on far right group.

Leader Tommy Robinson and his deputy Kevin Carroll briefly went to the public gallery of Court 12 to watch the beginning of the two-day hearing.

The court heard how the plot to strike an EDL event in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, only failed by chance - the group arrived late and the rally had finished earlier than expected.

Watch: EDL attack plotters 'intended to kill'

Pictures: Weapons found in car used by EDL attack plotters

EDL supporters chanted "Anjem Choudary, off our streets" and "EDL" and waved English flags outside court. Two men aged 24 and 26 were arrested outside the court on suspicion of being drunk and disorderly, City of London police said.

• UK
• EDL
• Terrorism

An online message purportedly from members of the hacking protest group Anonymous has threatened the "comprehensive decimation" of the English Defence League:

Under the guise of national pride you have instigated crimes against the innocent and incited the subjugation of Muslims.

We will not allow your injustices, your lies, and your stupidity, to further radicalize our youth into fearing and despising their fellow man.

In this operation, we will begin the systematic and comprehensive decimation of your cult.

We will further expose your falsities and your attempts to censor, to your members, to the British public, and to the world as a whole.

You will fall, we can say this with complete confidence

• Read: EDL 'members' contact details' posted online by hackers

• UK
• EDL

The publication of the contact details of alleged EDL members online by a hacking protest group, comes after a video vowing to bring the organisation down was posted online.

Titled 'A Message from Anonymous UK to the English Defence League', it accuses the group of using the death of Drummer Lee Rigby as an "another excuse to further spread your campaign of hate, bigotry, and misinformation".

Around 1,000 protesters joined an EDL march to Downing Street on Monday, chanting "Muslim killers off our streets" and "There's only one Lee Rigby" in tribute to the soldier killed in Woolwich last week.

• UK
• EDL