LONDON (AP) – A violent teenager faces decades in prison after he was convicted of stabbing to death three girls at Taylor Swift’s summer dance class.
Axel Rudakubana, 18, faces trial on Thursday at Liverpool Crown Court in northwest England in connection with the July 29 attack, which devastated the seaside town of Southport, shocked the country and sparked street violence and a manhunt.
The crime has sparked anti-immigrant riots and prompted the government to re-examine its definition of terrorism, its approach to changing the internet landscape and the way information about suspected criminals is made public.
Rudakubana was charged with three counts of murder, 10 counts of attempted murder, and other charges of possessing a knife, ricin poison and an al-Qaida pamphlet. He unexpectedly changed his plea to guilty on all charges on Monday – sparing the victims’ families a lengthy trial, but also potentially robbing them of answers.
The prosecutors plan to elaborate on their case against Rudakubana during the trial on Thursday, with relatives of the deceased watching in court.
The attack happened on the first day of summer vacation when twelve young girls were in class to learn yoga and dance to Taylor Swift songs. What was supposed to be a happy day turned into fear and sadness when Rudakubana armed with a knife came in and started stabbing the girls and their teacher.
He killed Alice Da Silva Aguiar, 9, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Bebe King, 6. Eight other girls, ages 7 to 13, were injured, along with pastor Leanne Lucas and John Hayes, who worked in the business. next door and he intervened.
The killings in a town in northwest England sparked days of anti-immigrant violence across the country after food rights activists seized on false reports that the attacker was a migrant who had recently arrived in the UK. and they suspect that the police and government are withholding information.
Rudakubana was born in Cardiff, Wales to Christian parents from Rwanda, and investigators have not been able to determine his motives. Police found documents on topics including Nazi Germany, the Rwandan genocide and car bombs in his machine.
In the years leading up to the attack he had been reported to several authorities about his violent interests and actions. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told lawyers on Tuesday that Rudakubana was “convicted of assaulting another child at school” and was in frequent contact with social workers, mental health and the police, who were called to his home about his behavior five times in between. 2019 and 2022. He was referred three times to the government’s anti-extremism program, Prevent, when he was 13 and 14.
All agencies failed to see the danger he was posing.
The government has announced that this case is a wake-up call. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said it must lead to “fundamental change” in the way the state protects its citizens, announcing a public inquiry into the failure that allowed Rudakubana to carry out his violence with a knife he ordered from Amazon.
He said laws may need to be revised to combat the “new threat” from violent individuals whose mixed motivations challenge the traditional definition of terrorism, “acts of extreme violence by lone, misguided, young men in their bedrooms.”
The Crown Prosecution Service has defended the decision not to release the information before Rudakubana went to court, saying “releasing that information early would have put the case at risk.” UK contempt of court rules limit what can be reported before a trial, in the interests of preventing judicial bias.
Source link
