Michael Adebolajo speaks to a witness videoing him on a smartphone after killing Lee Rigby in Woolwich. Photograph: Reuters
With the blood of his victim still fresh on his hands, Michael Adebolajo used the camera phone of a passerby to tell the world why he had only
moments earlier butchered a soldier on a London street.
In the first British murder to play out live on the internet, horrified onlookers posted minute-by-minute updates as the appalling scene played out in front of them. The full 16 minutes of the incident – from the moment Rigby was mowed down to the suspects being apprehended by police – was transmitted in real time to the world by smartphone-wielding onlookers in Artillery Place, south London.
Adebolajo actively sought out a witness with a camera phone to deliver what he saw as a 21st-century press conference. It was supposed to be his martyrdom video. But there were no satellite trucks or television crews, only a handful of bystanders armed with a smartphone.
"The only reason we have killed this man today is because Muslims are dying daily by British soldiers," said Adebolajo into the lens of a BlackBerry, his bloodied hands still holding the meat cleaver and butcher's knife used to slaughter his victim. "By Allah, we swear by the almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone."
The killer's views were recorded at about 2.30pm. Barely four hours later they were beamed into living rooms across the country on the ITV News teatime bulletin. A news editor from the programme rushed the amateur film-maker into a taxi and raced to the broadcaster's headquarters, 11 miles across London.
Another onlooker, the rapper "Boya Dee", described in real time on Twitter how the incident played out. "Ohhhhh myyyy God!!!! I just see a man with hishead chopped off right in front of my eyes!" he posted. "Mate ive seen alot of shit im my time but that has to rank sumwhere in the top 3. I couldnt believe my eyes. That was some movie shit."
Screams prompted a resident in the block of flats overlooking the scene to hold his camera phone out of the window, filming Adebolajo and his accomplice Michael Adebowale as they waited for police to arrive. It was this camera that broadcast a bird's eye view of the moment the killers charged at armed officers, before being shot and sent spinning to the ground. The amateur footage was rebroadcast around the world within seconds of being published on the internet. In contrast, a handwritten letter that Adebolajo had passed to one witness only saw the light of day six months later when its existence was revealed at the Old Bailey trial.
The BBC and ITV received around 800 complaints from airing the footage, with viewers either distressed about the clip or aggrieved at the broadcasters for lending a platform to the fanatical murderers. But by that time, Adebolajo's video was already out there.