UK man in court over threat to ‘kill queen’ with crossbow during Christmas Day intrusion at Windsor Castle
- Jaswant Singh Chail, who has been charged under Britain’s Treason Act spent months planning the attack and trying to gain access to the royal family
- In a video recording, Chail said he was seeking revenge on the British establishment for its treatment of Indians during the 1919 Amritsar massacre
A man arrested at Queen Elizabeth’s Windsor Castle home on Christmas Day last year wearing a mask and holding a crossbow told security “I am here to kill the queen”, a British court heard on Wednesday.
Jaswant Singh Chail, 20, who has been charged under Britain’s Treason Act, had spent months planning the attack and trying to gain access to the royal family, London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court was told.
Prosecutors said Chail, from Southampton in southern England, recorded a video before he entered the grounds of the castle to the west of London where the 96-year-old monarch mostly lives. She was there on the day of the intrusion.
“I am sorry for what I have done and what I will do. I am going to attempt to assassinate Elizabeth, queen of the royal family,” he said in the video, in which he was seen holding a crossbow and wearing a face covering.
“This is revenge for those who died in the 1919 massacre,” Chail said, referring to an incident when British troops shot dead nearly 400 Sikhs in their holy city of Amritsar in northwestern India.
