Alfie Coleman Convicted of Preparing Terrorism

Alfie Coleman, a 21-year-old from Great Notley in Essex, was convicted Thursday at the Old Bailey of preparing acts of terrorism after attempting to purchase a firearm and ammunition in an undercover operation by MI5 agents.

The conviction came during a retrial following a hung jury in the initial hearing. Coleman, then 19, was arrested on September 29, 2023, in a Morrisons car park in Stratford, east London. Jurors viewed video footage of him handing over 3,500 pounds in cash inside a Land Rover Discovery in exchange for a holdall containing a Makarov pistol, five magazines, and around 200 rounds of ammunition. Armed counterterrorism officers from the Metropolitan Police confronted him moments later, before he had walked 30 yards.

Prosecutors described Coleman as a militant accelerationist immersed in extreme far-right ideology since age 14. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, he trawled online for neo-Nazi materials, downloaded manifestos from mass killers including Dylann Roof, who murdered nine people in a South Carolina church in 2015, and Brenton Tarrant, responsible for 51 deaths in Christchurch mosques in 2019. He also possessed "The Anarchist Cookbook," a manual with...