Roshonara Choudhry

Roshonara Choudhry
Choudhry in her mugshot by the Metropolitan Police
Born	1989 (age 27–28) Newham, London, England
Occupation	Student
Criminal charge	Attempted murder
Criminal penalty	Life imprisonment (minimum 15 years)
Criminal status	In prison
Conviction(s)	Attempted murder

Roshonara Choudhry (Bengali: রুশনারা চৌধুরী; born 1989) is a former British student and an Islamic extremist who stabbed British MP Stephen Timms on 14 May 2010 during his constituency surgery in an attempt to kill him. She was found guilty of attempted murder and jailed for life with a minimum term of 15 years. Choudhry is the first al-Qaeda sympathiser to attempt an assassination in Britain.

Choudhry stated she had been influenced by online sermons of Anwar al-Awlaki, the leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Following her trial such material was removed from YouTube.

Choudhry was born in Newham, East London, and lived in East Ham. She was the eldest child and attended Plashet School in East Ham, later studying for her A-levels at Newham Sixth Form College. She had been in the final year of a degree in English and communications at King's College, London, but had dropped out shortly before the attempt on Timms' life. In a police interview, she stated that she dropped out due to finding the university to be anti-Islamic, as they had given an award to the Israeli politician Shimon Peres and ran counter-radicalisation programmes.

On 14 May 2010, Timms was approached by 21-year-old Roshonara Choudhry, during his constituency surgery at the Beckton Globe Library in Kingsford Way, Beckton, East London. She acted as though she was going to shake his hand, and then stabbed him twice in his abdomen with a 6-inch kitchen knife, before she was disarmed.