Security News > 2023 > November > Ex-GCHQ software dev jailed for stabbing NSA staffer

Joshua Bowles, a former Government Communications Headquarters programmer, attacked the individual in March following at least a month of planning, police said.

Bowles visited the leisure center four weeks prior to the attack after researching the victim extensively to plan out the attack.

The victim's colleague tried to stop the attack but was unsuccessful, as was bystander Alex Fuentes who attempted an intervention on his way to play football but was also punched by Bowles.

Fuentes' efforts afforded the two women time to run back to the gym entrance, but Bowles, 29, followed them inside and began the knife attack, inflicting multiple wounds to the victim in the abdomen, chest, and thigh.

Bowles also reportedly told Bunn that he would understand the motivations behind his attack if he knew about the work being carried out by GCHQ and the NSA. Justice Cheema-Grubb DBE said the attack was "Politically motivated" and also fueled by Bowles' "Anger and resentment towards women."

"By the time you launched your attack, your feelings of anger and resentment against GCHQ and women had evolved sufficiently to lead you to mount a lethal assault through which you wanted, however unrealistically, to disrupt the work of the UK intelligence community with an important ally, the United States of America, and you hoped to achieve this by killing one of the American citizens you knew was engaged in that work," Cheema-Grubb said.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/03/gchq_software_dev_stabbing/