LONDON: A man who admitted trying to kill late UK monarch Queen Elizabeth II after being found on the grounds of Windsor Castle with a loaded crossbow, was on Thursday handed a nine-year sentence.
Jaswant Singh Chail, 21, will serve the first part of his term in a high-security psychiatric hospital, moving to prison when his mental health improves.
Chail "lost touch with reality so that he had become psychotic", said sentencing judge Nicholas Hilliard.
After breaking into the grounds of the queen's residence on Christmas Day 2021, Chail admitted to an armed officer at the scene that he was there "to kill the queen."
He pleaded guilty to three charges at a criminal court hearing, becoming the first person to admit to treason in the UK in decades.
He also admitted to making threats to kill and possessing an offensive weapon.
Judge Hilliard said on sentencing that Chail had also been "informed by the fantasy world of Star Wars" and mounted the planned attack dressed as a Sith Lord, wearing an iron mask and carrying a loaded crossbow.
Chail also believed that he was communicating with an angel via an AI chatbot and planned the attack as revenge for the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre of Indians by British colonial troops, the judge added.
After his arrest, it emerged that he had stated his intent in a video recorded four days earlier, which he sent to his phone contacts list about 10 minutes before he was apprehended. --AFP