Murdered soldier Lee Rigby’s killers were given more than £200,000 in taxpayer-funded financial support to pay for their legal bills.

Rigby’s murder sparked shock across the county on 22 May last 2013 when he was mowed down with a car and then hacked to death in Woolwich by British Muslim converts Michael Adebolajo, of Hither Green, and Michael Adebowale, of Greenwich.

A Freedom of Information request revealed that the extremists received a combined total of £212,613.32 legal aid to cover solicitors, advocates fees and other disbursements.

The report emerged as Adebolajo, who was sentenced in February to a whole-life term condemning him to die behind bars, was lost his bid to challenge his conviction and sentence was refused.

However, the Judicial Office confirmed that Adebolajo has renewed both applications meaning they will now be aired before a panel of Court of Appeal judges at a hearing in London.

Adebowale, who has been jailed for life with a minimum sentence of 45 years, has been given the go-ahead to challenge his sentence before the Court of Appeal.

The pair lay in wait by Woolwich Barracks and picked Fusilier Rigby to kill assuming he was a soldier because he was wearing a Help for Heroes hooded top and carrying a camouflage rucksack.

After driving into him the killers – armed with eight knives including a meat cleaver – butchered him in broad daylight in front of horrified onlookers.

Both men were shot by police in dramatic scenes captured by CCTV.

They claimed they were “soldiers of Allah” and were motivated by the plight of Muslims abroad to carry out the murder. Judge Mr Justice Sweeney told Adebolajo he had “no real prospect of rehabilitation.”