Man Charged Under Treason Act for Attempted Crossbow Assassination of Queen Faces Less Time than J6 Defendants – Opinion

Treachery in direction of the British Crown

On Tuesday, after a Scotland Yard counter-terrorism investigation, a 20-year-old British Sikh was charged below the Treason Act for trying to assassinate Queen Elizabeth on Christmas Day whereas armed with a crossbow. Jaswant Singh Chail of Southampton in Southern England wore a hood and masks in a chilling video posted to Snapchat simply 24 minutes earlier than his arrest, lamenting about how he meant to “assassinate” the Queen to avenge the Jallianwala Bagh bloodbath, a tragedy that occurred 103 years in the past in India. Within the video, he makes a number of Star Wars references amid his threats saying,

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I’ve accomplished and what I’ll do. I’ll try and assassinate Elizabeth, Queen of the Royal Household. That is revenge for individuals who have died within the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh bloodbath. Additionally it is revenge for these  who’ve been killed, humiliated, and discriminated on due to their race. I’m an Indian Sikh, a Sith. My title was Jaswant Singh Chail, my title is Darth Janus.”

On the morning of December 25, 2021, shortly after 8:30 am, Chail was apprehended and arrested after scaling an outer wall utilizing a rope ladder and being noticed on CCTV strolling across the gardens of Windsor Citadel. The monarch was spending a quiet Christmas there on account of pandemic precautions, the primary for the reason that passing of Prince Phillip, as a substitute of the normal royal household gathering at Sandringham Home, the queen’s property in Norfolk. The Queen was having fun with breakfast with different members of the royal household on the time she was knowledgeable of the invasion. The would-be attacker was capable of get inside 500 meters of the Queen’s personal flats on the fort grounds.

Chail is being charged below Part 2 of the 1842 Treason Act, for the crime of getting a firearm or offensive weapon within the presence of the Queen with intent to injure or alarm her. The cost is lesser than treason, carrying as much as seven years imprisonment, and flogging which has by no means been utilized for violation of the Act. Different fees embody making threats to kill and possession of an offensive weapon. Chail was held on a psychological well being part after his arrest and is at present in custody and set to seem at London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court docket on August 17.

The final conviction made below the Act was in 1981 when Marcus Sarjeant fired six clean rounds at Queen Elizabeth as she paraded horseback throughout Trooping of the Color. Sarjeant claimed to be impressed by John Lennon’s assassination and the try on President Ronald Regan’s life that very same yr. Sarjeant pleaded responsible and was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment.

Learn Extra: John Hinckley, Jr., the Man Who Shot President Ronald Reagan, Has Obtained Unconditional Launch

By the Lens of January sixth Prosecutions

AP Photograph/J. Scott Applewhite

The British sentences below the Treason Act pale compared to Biden’s DOJ bringing seditious conspiracy fees towards alleged leaders accused within the January sixth Capitol riots. Punishment for seditious conspiracy carries as much as 20 years in jail and is theorized to hold an extra 4 to 5 years based mostly on the alleged victims being federal officers.

Tuesday, U.S. District Choose Amit Mehta denied a request to delay the trial of defendants going through seditious conspiracy fees. 5 of 11 defendants within the case, together with Stewart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers, will go to trial September 24. Protection attorneys argued about pretrial publicity stemming from Home Choose Committee hearings. I’ve beforehand written in regards to the congressional inquiry impacting honest trials in DC and the characterizations made about Rhodes. Choose Mehta mentioned he may revisit the difficulty forward of the trial.

“If transcripts are dropped on the eve of trial that pertain to those defendants and the allegations towards them, I’ll revisit the difficulty. You may have my phrase, the reality of the matter is the court docket’s docket can’t be dictated by how Congress is appearing and what they’re doing.“

 

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