A failed asylum seeker has been found guilty of trying to break into London’s Israeli embassy to launch a knife attack.
Abdullah Albadri, 34, planned an attack on the embassy in Kensington, west London, to “exact revenge” for the killing of children in Gaza, prosecutors said.
The Kuwaiti-born migrant was tackled by armed police after he leapt up an embassy fence armed with two four inch knives last May.
He was found guilty at the Old Bailey on Friday of preparation of terrorist acts and possession of two bladed articles. and will be sentenced at a later date.
The court had heard how Albadri was refused asylum after he twice entered the UK in small boats in 2021 and April 2025.
The defendant, who was born into the stateless Arabian Bedoon tribe, said he had been jailed and mistreated for campaigning for human rights in Kuwait.
On April 28 last year, he was captured on CCTV walking for an hour from Kilburn in north-west London to the embassy with his head covered by dark sunglasses and a distinctive red and white headscarf.
Just before 6pm, Albadri arrived outside the embassy in Kensington Palace Gardens and made a gesture like a salute before he jumped up the 8ft high metal fence.
Within seconds, two armed diplomatic protection officers reached up and grabbed the defendant, pulling him to the ground.
Pc Libby Chessor told jurors it had been “challenging” pulling Albadri off the fence because he had been holding on “quite strongly”.
She said: “The way he was walking towards the embassy, the things he was saying, how quickly he jumped up, I believed it was his intent to get over that railing.”
Albadri was pinned down by officers and handcuffed before being searched.
A man has been found guilty of preparing terrorist acts. Armed officers arrested him as he attempted to breach security at the Israeli Embassy in London, carrying two knives. pic.twitter.com/StBX2tPpsb
— Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) May 1, 2026
On police body-worn video shown in court, Albadri indicated he had “got my weapons”.
Two red-handled 4in long knives with serrated blades were seized along with pieces of paper including a “martyrdom note”.
Albadri told police: “I wanna make a crime inside there, why are you stopping me? Why are you stopping from making crimes?”
He went on to complain: “Why didn’t you let me in?”
Before being put into a police van, Albadri was heard on police body-worn video to say: “You know it’s just a message, yeah.
“They need to stop this f****** war on children.
“We need to live in harmony because the children who live there, it’s all the same.
“We are living in the same Earth, it’s not a faraway place…”
The defendant later denied preparing to commit an act of terrorism and said the knives were intended for “personal use” as he was homeless.
Giving evidence in his trial, Albadri had insisted he never intended to take his shouted protest inside the grounds of the embassy or harm anyone.
He said: “It is against what I believe. It is against my nature.
“It is against my character. How are we going to stop killing by killing?”
He said he was being “sarcastic” by referring to the knives as “weapons” and his alleged martyrdom note was just an overly dramatic letter to his mother.
Defence barrister Chris Henry KC said Albadri had been in a “state of total despair” but had tried to get help after his asylum claim was rejected and he was told to leave an asylum hotel.
He said: “This trial is not about our views of asylum seekers who come across on small boats.
“This case is about a human being in real distress and what is going on inside his head.”
In his evidence, Albadri had denied wanting to harm anyone but conceded he would consider being shot while protesting peacefully to be a form of martyrdom.
