Small boat migrant guilty of attempting knife attack on Israeli embassy

A man who tried to climb into the Israeli embassy in London carrying two knives has been found guilty of preparing a terror-related knife attack.

Abdullah Albadri, 34, had only arrived in the UK in a small boat from France 16 days before the attempted attack on 28 April 2025. It was the second time he had entered the UK illegally by small boat in four years.

He was arrested trying to scale the railings of the heavily-guarded embassy, and asked the armed diplomatic protection officers who detained him, "Why are you stopping me from making crimes?"

That morning he had messaged his mother: "I chose the path of martyrdom."

On Friday, a jury at the Old Bailey in London, which deliberated for nearly 14 hours, found him guilty by majority verdict of preparation of terrorist acts and possession of two bladed articles.

Albadri's motivation seems to have been Israel's war in Gaza. After his arrest, he told officers, "I want to do something to stop the war", and also said he wanted to stop a war on children.

During his trial, Albadri said that he was from the stateless Bedoon tribe and had been born in Kuwait.

His police officer father had paid for his schooling but he could not access higher education because of his ethnicity, so he became an activist. He said he had spent five years in prison in Kuwait.

In August 2021 he made his first small boat journey across the channel and claimed asylum. His story was that while awaiting his asylum decision he hitched a lift in a lorry that he thought was taking him to Manchester, but found himself back in France.

Last year he crossed the channel again, arriving on 12 April. He was taken to the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Basingstoke the next day, but three days later he was told that because he had already applied for asylum his application was being treated as a "further submission" and he did not qualify for accommodation, so he was left homeless.

He spent the next few days sleeping rough, washing in mosques and sometimes borrowing accommodation from people in the Kuwaiti community in London.

But on 24 April, just 12 days after arriving in the country, he also started searching for the location of the Israeli embassy,and searched online for information about "suicide among enemies".

He copied out a verse titled "the benefit of martyrdom," that was found on him when he was arrested.

On the morning of 28 April he started the day in Kilburn in north-west London.

He took a picture of a handwritten note with a knife beside it and sent it to his mother in Kuwait.

In the note he wrote, "I will attack in the way of Allah and for the sake of being free from humiliation in this world."

After he had sent the picture of the note, Albadri messaged his mother, "I chose the path of martyrdom", and asked her to "be proud of me because I will conquer the enemies in their own homes."