Luigi Mangione, alleged killer of boss Brian Thompson, charged with murder as a ‘terrorist act’

Luigi Mangione, the alleged killer of an American health insurance boss in New York, has been indicted for murder “considered an act of terrorism”Manhattan prosecutor Alvin Bragg announced Tuesday. “It was an assassination which was supposed to arouse terror”underlined the magistrate during a press conference, referring to the murder “premeditated and unscrupulous” by Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthCare, at dawn on December 4 in Manhattan’s business district.

If convicted of this charge of murder with a terrorist dimension, which was decided by a grand jury of citizens, Luigi Mangione, 26, faces life in prison without parole, the Manhattan prosecutor said. Alvin Bragg said he hoped the suspect, still detained in the state of Pennsylvania where he was arrested last week, would be transferred quickly to New York for trial.

Popular anger against insurance companies

Luigi Mangione is scheduled to appear again Thursday in a local Pennsylvania court, a hearing that could speed up that transfer. Questions remain about the motivations that pushed this engineering graduate, a brilliant former student from a wealthy family, to coldly shoot Brian Thompson at the foot of a hotel in the heart of Manhattan.

Police said he was in possession of a three-page handwritten text criticizing the health insurance system in the United States. The death of Brian Thompson caused great emotion, but it was also accompanied by hateful comments on social networks against American health insurance programs, illustrating deep anger in the country towards a lucrative system accused of enriching itself on the backs of patients.