UNITED KINGDOM: A man confessed to his crime, admitting that his intention was to harm the Queen Elizabeth II , after being caught on the grounds of Windsor Castle with a loaded crossbow on Christmas Day 2021.
The 21-year-old from Southampton, born in Winchester, without any previous convictions, who was wearing a mask at that time when the Queen was in her private compartment, pleaded guilty today to charges under Section 2 of the Treason Act 1842 for possessing a deadly weapon and threatening to kill.
He was 19 years old at the time of his attempted murder. He was stopped by a police officer when he was spotted close to the Queen’s private apartments, as explained by a previous hearing that took place shortly after 8:10 a.m. on December 25, 2021.
Jaswant Singh Chail, who worked in a supermarket, had uploaded a video on TikTok revealing that he was taking revenge for the Amritsar Massacre of 1919 in India, half an hour before trying to execute his plan.
After the officer discovered a hooded man walking towards the private garden of the castle, the officer asked him to drop the weapon and get to his knees. He confessed then that he was “here to kill the queen.”
According to the prosecutors, crossbow bolts, a metal file, and other items were later discovered at the hotel where Chail had stayed the previous night. The crossbow was lethal and could have seriously injured anyone who was hit.
This case was investigated by Scotland Yard’s Counter-Terrorism Command. “This was an extraordinarily serious event, but one that the patrolling officers who apprehended Chail managed with tremendous coolness and skill,” Commander Richard Smith, chief of the Counter-Terrorism Command, said in response to the plea.
Additionally, he said, “They showed incredible guts to confront a masked individual who was brandishing a loaded crossbow and subsequently detain him without any injuries.”
Chail was detained under the Mental Health Act, after which he was transferred to the Broadmoor secure mental health unit in February.
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