, hacking at his body "like a butcher attacking a joint of meat" after running him over, a court was told on Friday, according to Reuters. Michael Adebolajo, 28, and Michael Adebowale, 22, dragged the lifeless body of Fusilier Lee Rigby, a veteran of the Afghan War, into the middle of the street so horrified members of the public could see what they had done, prosecutor Richard Whittam said at the start of the men's trial. They deny what Whittam called a "cowardly and callous murder" by knocking Rigby down with a car as he crossed a street in Woolwich, southeast London, on the afternoon of May 22 before setting upon his unconscious body with a meat cleaver and knives. "He was repeatedly stabbed and it appears it was Michael Adebolajo who made a serious and almost successful attempt to decapitate Lee Rigby with multiple blows to his neck made with the meat cleaver," Whittam said. "They had committed a cowardly and callous murder by deliberately attacking an unarmed man in civilian clothes from behind using a vehicle as a weapon," he added. The jury of eight women and four men was told Adebolajo, had bought a set of five knives and a sharpener the day before. Whittam said it appeared he had picked up Adebowale, on the morning of the killing. The court fell silent as the jury were shown closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage of the moment the Vauxhall Tigra car drove at Rigby. -- SPA 18:44 LOCAL TIME 15:44 GMT تغريد
