UNITED KINGDOM: A man accused of allegedly making threats to assassinate the late Queen Elizabeth II, after being arrested outside her Windsor Castle home on Christmas Day last year, is scheduled to go on trial. The trial will take place next year, London’s Old Bailey Court heard on Wednesday.
Jaswant Singh Chail, 20, who has been detained under Britain’s Treason Act, is accused of making a threat to kill the 96-year-old monarch, possessing offensive weaponry, including a loaded crossbow to injure the Queen.
Queen Elizabeth II, who passed away last month, was present at Windsor Castle on the day of the supposed assassination plan along with her heir and now monarch, King Charles III, and other close family members.
The intruder had appeared at the scene, wearing a mask and holding a crossbow, announcing to the police: “I am here to kill the queen,” a British court hearing revealed.
Chail, who hails from Southampton in southern London, had previously made public statements of assassination attempts and recorded a video before he entered the Windsor grounds to execute his plan.
“I am sorry for what I have done and what I will do. I am going to attempt to assassinate Elizabeth, queen of the royal family,” he said in the video, in which he was seen holding a crossbow and wearing a face covering.
Chail appeared at Wednesday’s hearing via video link wearing a black hoodie, to confirm his name and date of birth.
He was notified that his trial would be held on March 20 next year and would probably last two to three weeks.
He did not enter a plea, the case was temporarily adjourned so that further evidence could be produced while Chail was detained in police custody. The next hearing will take place on a date yet to be confined in December.
Chail’s intentions behind the assassination attempts are clear. He wanted to kill the queen to avenge the deaths of nearly 400 Sikhs at the hands of British colonisers in the infamous 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre, in the holy city of Amritsar in northwestern India.
The revenge plan is also intended for the unscrupulous crimes committed against people of colour by white people in Britain, Chail added.
“It is also revenge for those who have been killed, humiliated and discriminated against because of their race,” he said.
Indians have long demanded a formal apology from the United Kingdom for its brutal colonisation and its diabolical acts of violence, murder and loot in India for almost 200 years, resulting in the deaths of millions of Indians and the debilitation of a once rich country.
Queen Elizabeth laid a wreath at the site of the massacre during a visit to India in 1997 and referred to it as a “distressing example” of “difficult episodes” in the past.
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