LONDON (AP) — A student opposed to the Iraq war was convicted Tuesday of trying to murder a British lawmaker in retaliation for his support for the conflict.

Roshonara Choudhry, 21, a communications and English major at London’s prestigious King’s College, stabbed parliamentarian Stephen Timms twice in the stomach as he met with constituents in May of this year.

Choudhry told police she wanted to kill the former government minister on behalf of “the people of Iraq.”

A jury at London’s Central Criminal Court convicted her after less than 15 minutes of deliberation.

It was a quick end to what to what the Judge Jeremy Cooke described as an unusual case. Choudhry refused to appear in person, saying through her defense lawyer Jeremy Dein that she did not recognize the court’s authority and had ordered her legal team not to contest the evidence against her.

She was due to be sentenced via videolink Wednesday.

Timms, 55, has served in parliament since 1994 as the representative of East Ham, a diverse area of east London marked by high unemployment.

He served in a wide variety of junior ministerial posts in the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose decision to join the U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq proved deeply unpopular in Britain.

Timms, a Labour Party member of the House of Commons, was treated for small lacerations to his liver and a small perforation of the stomach, but Scotland Yard said Tuesday that he “was extremely fortunate not to have been killed.”

“There can never be any justification for anyone carrying out such an attack,” Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stuart Osborne said in a statement Tuesday.

All British lawmakers hold regular sessions in which constituents can present problems and complaints.

In January 2000, Liberal Democrat lawmaker Nigel Jones and his aide Andrew Pennington were attacked by a man wielding a sword during such a meeting.

Pennington was killed and Jones injured in the attack in Cheltenham, England

• RAPHAEL G. SATTER