A Manchester man who carried out hostile reconnaissance at a military base alongside the attacker responsible for the October 2025 attack on Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue has been sentenced to life imprisonment.
Mohammad Asim Bashir, 31, of Cheetham Hill, was sentenced at Manchester Crown Court yesterday to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 16 years and 135 days.
Last month, Bashir pleaded guilty to one count of preparation of terrorist acts under Section 5 of the Terrorism Act 2006.
He did not contest the charge and the only substantive mitigation was that his legal team argued he had experienced a “change of heart” after the reconnaissance trip to the UK Defence Academy and had abandoned the planned attack.
The investigation began after the October 2025 attack on Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue. Counter Terrorism Policing North West examined phones belonging to the attacker, Jihad Al Shamie, and identified Bashir as a close associate who shared “extremist views.”
WhatsApp messages between the pair included discussions about preparing for “war” and contained “antisemitic comments.”
Investigators established that on August 14, 2025 the two men made a ten-hour round trip to conduct hostile reconnaissance at the UK Defence Academy in Shrivenham. Bashir drove for most of the journey while Al Shamie recorded notes about the site’s security arrangements in a phone document titled “espionage”.
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Both men later disposed of the phones used during their research. However, investigators recovered cloud data linked to Al Shamie’s devices, revealing internet searches for weapons, potential targets, and individuals connected to the Israeli military.
The investigation also uncovered CCTV footage and audio recordings of the pair discussing plans for an attack, which formed part of the evidence against Bashir.
During sentencing, the prosecution described Bashir as a “long-standing, committed jihadist”.
Greater Manchester Police apology
In a related development, Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Sir Stephen Watson said the force was only now able to explain its previous contact with synagogue attacker Jihad Al-Shamie because the criminal case against his associate, Mohammed Bashir, had concluded.
He revealed that Al-Shamie had been arrested twice in 2025 on unrelated criminal allegations and that officers seized his mobile phones on both occasions. However, the contents of those devices were not examined before the attack on Heaton Park synagogue.
Watson said an internal review found the phones contained significant evidence of an “extremist mindset” and accepted that failing to review them before the attack was a serious missed opportunity.
“There can however, be little doubt that the information contained within these devices would have inspired further investigative action,” he said. “It is clear that our not having reviewed the data available to us prior to the attack, constitutes a missed opportunity.”
However, Sir Stephen stopped short of saying the attack could have been prevented, saying it would be for the Independent Office for Police Conduct and the Coroner’s inquests to determine what impact, if any, the failure to examine the phones had on the events that followed.
The Chief Constable also apologised to victims, survivors and the wider Jewish community for the additional distress caused by the revelation.
“I am disappointed at the prospect of adding to the distress of all of those affected by the terrible events last October. For this, I am deeply sorry,” he said.
Sir Stephen said Greater Manchester Police would continue to cooperate fully with the ongoing independent investigations and would act “transparently, with candour and in a manner which fully embraces our accountability.”
