2019 Queen Alexandra assassination attempt
The 2019 Queen Alexandra assassination attempt, alternatively known as the August 16th Plot was an unsuccessful assassination attempt against Queen Alexandra on 16 August 2019 in the Southeast Asian country of Malaysia by a local citizen while she was conducting a state visit to Malaysia as the British monarch.
The assassin, identified as Anuar Omar, an operative of the elite VAT 69 Commando unit, had unsuccessfully attempted to murder the Queen by intercepting the latter's convoy and attempting to break the windows using a handgun before he was promptly subdued by authorities. Following a subsequent month-long trial, Anuar Omar was sentenced to life in a British prison and was henceforth extradited to the United Kingdom from Malaysia to begin serving his sentence. In the meantime, the Queen herself, the primary target of the attempt, escaped generally unharmed by the plot against her.
Background
In the days leading up to the incident, it had then been announced that the Queen, whom had ascended to the throne just two years earlier on October 2017, intended to undertake a state visit to Malaysia. Almost immediately, controversy quickly ensued given that her well-publicised Jewish background was not generally well-received by the country's Muslim-majority community, whom particularly opposed Israel's actions against neighbouring Palestine. Abdul Hadi Awang, an Islamist politician and leader of the Malaysian Islamic Party, publicly opposed the monarch's planned visit to the country, stating, "It is well known that she and much of her family are ancestrally Jewish, and therefore, as strident defenders of the Palestinians in their fight against the oppressive Zionist regime of Israel, Malaysia must not allow these Jewish people, regardless of their status, to ever enter the country in the spirit of unity and Islamic brotherhood".
Nonetheless, despite the mixed reception to the announcement owing to extensive security guarantees and the approval of then-Prime Minister of Malaysia Mahathir Mohammad, whom personally approved of the state visit, which he pragmatically saw as a "great opportunity to further strengthen the longstanding ties between the United Kingdom and Malaysia", it was eventually agreed that the state visit would proceed although out of security reasons intimate details regarding the occasion were kept strictly confidential in order to avoid any potential leaks that could inspire a nefarious attempt on the Queen's life.
Attempt
On 16 August 2019, at 2:30 pm local time, the British delegation, consisting of the Queen and a number of diplomatic staffers, arrived at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport where they were then processed through a special terminal and promptly escorted to an awaiting convoy by a group of heavily-armed elite VAT 69 Commando operatives. At roughly 2:53 pm, the convoy began its journey from the airport towards the Istana Negara (English: National Palace), the official residence of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, the country's supreme monarch. For the journey, the Queen and her staffers were seated in a black bulletproof Bentley Continental Spur escorted by a group of motorcade consisting of several similarly bulletproof Volvo XC90 and Proton X70 vehicles, in addition to a group of Honda VFR800 motorcycles, all of which are coloured in black.
After about fifty minutes or so, as the convoy was passing through a long stretch of road, one of the operatives on motorcycles tasked with escorting the Queen and her entourage suddenly deviated from the rest of the motorcade and promptly sped up towards the Bentley ahead that was carrying the Queen whereupon finding himself aligned right next to the vehicle, the operative, later identified as 33-year-old Major Anuar Omar, soon took out his handgun, a Colt M1911, and fired towards the bulletproof window of the vehicle with the explicit intent of assassinating the Queen. However, none of the rounds fired managed to penetrate past the bulletproof windows while the Bentley's driver, in response to the incident, promptly veered slightly towards the left, effectively knocking the operative off his motorcycle and down to the road below.
Soon enough, in the mere minutes after the incident, as the convoy came to a brief halt, several of the operatives nearby promptly took to subdue and arrest the rogue operative, whom was then immediately taken away from the rest of the group for further questioning pertaining to his recent deliberate act. In the meantime, after having then come to a halt, followed by a brief security inspection in order to prevent a repeat of the incident, the convoy soon resumed its journey to its destination where at roughly 4:05 pm, the convoy finally arrived at the Istana Negara with no further incidents.
Aftermath
In the ensuing weeks, a thorough police investigation revealed that Anuar Omar, a Major in the elite VAT 69 Commando unit, had conspired to personally assassinate the Queen out of spite towards the latter's Jewish identity which he equated to the controversial policies of Israel, a Jewish-majority country that shares no diplomatic recognition with and is heavily condemned by Malaysia. Meanwhile, when asked whether he had anyone else in the unit as co-conspirators for his assassination attempt, Anuar Omar strongly indicated that he was working alone and that no one else was ever aware of his plot up until that point.
Not long after it was determined and confirmed that Anuar Omar was indeed the individual behind the attempted assassination, questions soon arose over whether he would be put to trial by a Malaysian or British court, given that it had occurred within Malaysian territory but at the same time involved the United Kingdom's head of state. Eventually, following the precedent established by the trial of the Lockerbie bombing perpetrators, whom were put to trial by a Scottish court in a Dutch territory that was briefly leased to Scotland for the trial, a site, namely the now-defunct RMAF Kuala Lumpur Air Base, was then temporarily leased to the United Kingdom for the duration of the trial. Eventually, after a month-long trial, a British court sentenced Anuar Omar to life in prison for his assassination attempt against the country's head of state, with his sentence due to be served in a prison in the United Kingdom itself. Following this, several further appeals were filed in order to either plead for a reduction in the severity of the sentence or to otherwise seek a full release for Anuar Omar entirely, none of which proved ultimately successful with the latter then promptly extradited to the United Kingdom on 20 September 2019 where he began serving his sentence.
Following this, the British government, whilst applauding the decision made by the court to sentence the assassin to life imprisonment and the Malaysian government's cooperative spirit in immediately setting up the trial itself, nonetheless soon questioned the apparent security lapse on the part of the Malaysians, with Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond questioning the fact that an operative initially included in the security detail for the Queen and her entourage had managed to execute his attempt without warning and whom would have perhaps succeeded if not for the bulletproof design of the vehicle carrying the monarch and her entourage. In response, Abdul Hamid Bador, the then-Inspector-General of Police issued a statement apologising to the British government for the security lapse, which was deemed to have put the British monarch's life in extreme danger, while also asserting that prior to the occasion, extensive background checks had been done on all the operatives involved in order to ensure that given the circumstances none of them would ever potentially go rogue and disrupt the ensuing state visit. Nonetheless, in light of Anuar Omar's actions, the Inspector-General of Police soon issued a follow-up statement promising that such an incident would never happen again while also calling for further and more thorough background checks on everyone involved for any high-level events be it escorting a foreign head of state and others.