Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale were found guilty
Michael Adebolajo (L) and Michael Adebowale were found guilty of the muder of fusilier Lee Rigby in Woolwich Reuters

One of the killers of soldier Lee Rigby has launched an appeal against his prision sentence for the savage murder.

Michael Adebolajo was given a whole-life sentence in February for the murder of Rigby in May 2013.

The 29-year-old Muslim convert, together with Michael Adebowale, 22, rammed into Rigby with a car before hacking him to death with knifes in Woolwich, south-east London, in a crime which shocked the nation.

Handing Adebolajo a whole-life term, Justice Sweeney said there was not much evidence to suggest he could ever be fully rehabilitated into society, while concluding Adebowale suffered from mental health issues.

Just days before the extremists were sentenced, five Court of Appeal judges overruled the European court of human rights, which decreed last year that locking up prisoners for life without review was a breach of human rights.

But Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas said the judges did not agree with the decisionbecause "there are crimes that are so heinous that just punishment may require imprisonment for life."

During the trial at the Old Bailey, Adebolajo told the court he was acting as a "soldier of Allah" and claimed Rigby was targeted that day because he was wearing a Help for Heroes shirt.

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