Secret identity to remain for Anzac Day terrorist

A high court ruling has revealed that the identity of Britain’s youngest terrorist, who plotted to murder police officers in Australia, will remain a secret for the rest of his life.

The Lancashire-born teenager, known only as RXG, sent encrypted messages when he was 14 instructing an Australian jihadist to launch attacks during a 2015 Anzac Day parade. He was recruited online by ISIS propagandist Abu Khaled al-Cambodi.

Following the attempted attack, he sent thousands of messages to 18-year-old Sevdet Besim, instructing him to kill police officers at the remembrance parade in Melbourne held annually to commemorate Australians and New Zealanders killed in conflict.

Although the ban on identifying him, decided at the time he was sentenced, would normally expire when the accused trans 18, judge Dame Victoria Sharp granted him lifelong anonymity in a ruling, saying that identifying him was likely to cause him ‘serious harm’ and it was therefore necessary to take the rare decision

She said: “We are satisfied that RXG’s case is an exceptional one. We acknowledge that any prohibition on the identification of a defendant in a criminal proceedings is a serious matter and represents a significant interference with the open justice principle. Nevertheless, on the evidence before us, in our judgment it is both necessary and proportionate.”