He will remain in a psychiatric hospital until his condition allows him to be transferred to prison. 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 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 carrying a crossbow near the apartments of the sovereign, 95 years old at the time.
The Queen was then residing at the castle amid the Covid-19 pandemic and was there for the end-of-year celebrations with other members of the royal family, including Charles, who became king in September of the year last after the death of Elizabeth II. 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 the extremely rare “Treason Act”, Jaswant Singh Chail pleaded guilty in February to having “deliberately produced or possessed a loaded crossbow with the intention of using it to injure the person of Her Majesty the Queen Elizabeth II, or to harm Her Majesty.” He also pleaded guilty to threatening to kill and illegal possession of a weapon.
“It’s revenge for those who died”
This former supermarket employee living in Southampton (southern England) had sent a video shortly before taking action to around twenty people claiming that he was going to try to assassinate Elizabeth II. Using the terminology of the Star Wars saga and describing himself as a Sith, an evil group opposed to the beneficent Jedi, he explained that he acted out of resentment towards the British Empire, seeking revenge on the “establishment” for the treatment of Indians.
In a video shown during the hearings at the Old Bailey court 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 have done and what I am going to do. I will attempt to assassinate Queen Elizabeth.” He added: “It is revenge for those who died in 1919 in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre”, or Amritsar massacre, during which Indian soldiers of the British colonial regime opened fire on an unauthorized political gathering of supporters of Gandhi, killing several hundred of them.
An exceptional case
Several of the psychiatric experts who examined him concluded that he suffered from psychotic disorders at the material time, autism spectrum disorders and depression. But he had “homicidal thoughts” before “becoming psychotic”, underlined the judge.
The incident had raised concerns about the security measures in place to protect the monarch. Intrusion attempts at Windsor and at Buckingham Palace, the Queen’s residence in the heart of London, are however not entirely exceptional. Since 1842, article 2 of the “Treason Act” has punished attempts to “injure or harm Her Majesty” but recourse to the text is very rare.
The most famous case dates back to 1981 when Marcus Sarjaent was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to firing five blank shots at Elizabeth II during a parade.