Royal Family Won’t Be Changing Protocol After ISIS Threat Made Against Prince George
The Royal Family will not be scaling back their public outings because of the ISIS threat made against one of the heirs to the British throne, four-year-old Prince George. According to TMZ, a source close to the royals has said that Prince William’s oldest child will appear, alongside his family, on the balcony at Buckingham Palace for a ceremony that will be viewed by the public.
He will also continue attending school, the location of which is also publicly known. This is notable because the ISIS threat targeted the school. As The Guardian reports, an ISIS supporter named Husnain Rashid, a former teacher at a mosque, posted hundreds of thousands of propaganda messages to a forum, some of which encourage other would-be terrorists to attack Prince George while he was in classes at Thomas Battersea.
According to The Guardian, Rashid, a resident of Nelson, Lancashire, proposed Prince George as a target shortly after he started going to the school which is located in south-west London. In October of last year, he posted a photo of the young prince’s school covered by an image of two jihadis in masks. He added a message that included the address of the school and wrote, “Even the royal family will not be left alone. School starts early.”
Islamic State supporter Husnain Rashid has admitted calling for an attack on Prince George https://t.co/5sDMSjMzk8 pic.twitter.com/0TsxQSgh3M
— ITV News (@itvnews) May 31, 2018
But Husnain Rashid didn’t just pinpoint Prince George as a vulnerable target, he also suggested that cyanide should be injected into fruit, vegetables, and ice-cream at supermarkets.
After his arrest in November 2017, the 32-year-old Rashid claimed the charges against him were untrue. However, on Thursday, days before his trial was set to begin, he switched his plea on four of the total seven counts. Three of these charges are for “engaging in conduct in preparation of terrorist acts” and the other count is for “encouraging terrorism.” The Crown Prosecution Service disclosed that he changed his plea when he saw “the overwhelming weight of evidence against him,” The Guardian reports.
Husnain reportedly used a Samsung phone to conduct most of this online terroristic activity. The phone, The Guardian notes, had no SIM card, was on airplane mode, and had tape stuck to the camera. When police came to his home to arrest him, he threw the phone out of a window but it landed in front of a policeman.
According to TMZ, Prince George was recently seen out and about in public with his mother, Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge and his sister, Princess Charlotte. The three royals were seen at a public park for the Houghton horse trials.
