Briton admits plot to behead Muslim soldier

By Mark Trevelyan, Security Correspondent

LEICESTER (Reuters) - A man has pleaded guilty to a plot to kidnap and kill a Muslim soldier in the British army by cutting off his head "like a pig", a court was told on Tuesday.

Parviz Khan, 37, pleaded guilty this month to a series of charges including the beheading plot, which was foiled by police and the MI5 security service a year ago.

Media had been barred from reporting Khan's plea until Tuesday when a trial of two other men opened in the central English city of Leicester.

A British and Pakistani passport holder, Khan was "a man who has the most violent and extreme Islamist views" and who wanted to get physically involved in acts of terrorism, prosecutor Nigel Rumfitt said.

He said Khan was "enraged" by the fact there were Muslims in the British army, which Islamist militants portray as fighting Islam in Afghanistan and Iraq, and formed a plan to kidnap a Muslim soldier in the central city of Birmingham.

With the help of drug dealers, the victim was to be seized while enjoying a night out and bundled into a car, Rumfitt said.

"He would be taken to a lockup garage and there he would be murdered by having his head cut off like a pig," he said.

Prosecutors said the expression "like a pig" was Khan's own.