A 21-year-old young man suffering from psychiatric disorders, who wanted to kill Queen Elizabeth II with a crossbow at Windsor Castle on Christmas Day 2021, was sentenced Thursday, October 5 in London to nine years in detention.
Jaswant Singh Chail was arrested on the morning of December 25, 2021, his face covered with a metal mask and equipped with a crossbow, near the apartments of the sovereign, aged 95 at the time of the events.
The Queen then resided at the castle in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and was there for the end-of-year celebrations with other members of the royal family, including the future king, Charles III.
At the time of his arrest, after entering the perimeter of the castle, the accused told the police that he was “there to kill the queen”. He was then committed to psychiatric care.
Prosecuted under section 2 of the Treason Act (which punishes attempts to “injure or harm Her Majesty”), used extremely rarely, Jaswant Singh Chail pleaded guilty in February to having “deliberately produced or possessed a loaded crossbow with the intention of using it to (…) harm Her Majesty”.
" A revenge "
The man also pleaded guilty to threatening to kill and illegal possession of a weapon. This former supermarket employee living in Southampton, in the south of the country, had sent a video shortly before taking action to around twenty people claiming that he was going to try to assassinate Elizabeth II.
In the document played during the hearings at the Old Bailey in London, Jaswant Singh Chail, in a black hoodie and white mask, is seen handling the crossbow and saying: "I'm sorry for what I what I have done and what I am going to do. I will attempt to assassinate Queen Elizabeth. »
“It is revenge for those who died in 1919 in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre,” (or “Amritsar massacre”) added the young man, referring to an episode during which Indian soldiers of the British colonial regime opened fire on an unauthorized political gathering of Gandhi supporters, killing hundreds of them.
Several of the psychiatric experts who examined him concluded that he suffered from psychotic disorders at the material time, autism spectrum disorder and depression, and had "homicidal thoughts" before "becoming psychotic", according to the judge. He will remain in a psychiatric hospital until his condition allows him to be transferred to prison, according to the hybrid sentence handed down by Judge Nicholas Hilliard at the Old Bailey.
The incident had raised concerns about the security measures in place to protect the monarch. However, intrusion attempts at Windsor and Buckingham Palace, the Queen's residence in the heart of London, are not exceptional.
