His knife attack sparked the most violent riots in thirteen years in the United Kingdom. The alleged killer of three little girls in England at the end of July is on trial from this Monday before the Liverpool Criminal Court.
Axel Rudakubana, 18, is accused of killing Bebe King, 6, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Alice da Silva, 9, on July 29 in Southport, northwest England, during a a dance class inspired by pop star Taylor Swift. Ten other people were injured, including eight children, in one of the worst stabbing attacks the country has seen in years.
Anti-immigration riots
Violent anti-immigration demonstrations took place in dozens of towns in England and Northern Ireland, fueled by far-right agitators amid Internet rumors about the suspect. He had been wrongly presented as a Muslim asylum seeker even though he was born in Wales to a family originally from Rwanda and lived in Banks, a township near Southport.
The violence lasted several days, during which rioters attacked hotels housing asylum seekers, mosques, and clashes took place with the police, mobilized en masse, or with against demonstrators.
More than 410 people sentenced
On August 8, thousands of people gathered across the country to say “stop the far right” and against racism and Islamophobia. Although Axel Rudakubana was a minor at the time of the events, the courts authorized the revelation of his identity in the face of rumors circulating about him.
Labor Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who came to power a few weeks earlier, denounced “extreme right” riots and promised the greatest firmness for the perpetrators of this violence and for those who stirred it up online. As of mid-December, more than 410 people had been sentenced across the country in connection with these riots, including more than 360 to prison, according to a count carried out by the British news agency PA. Two men received nine years in prison, the heaviest sentence handed down in the crackdown on this violence.
-Tribute to personalities
A body responsible for monitoring police action estimated that they had underestimated the climate of violence and the weight of disinformation which culminated in the riots this summer. The Southport attack sparked a wave of horrified reactions across the country. King Charles III visited the site in August to meet the surviving children.
The day after the attack, singer Taylor Swift, then in the middle of her global tour, said she was “completely shocked”. According to several media, the star met two of the injured girls on the sidelines of his concerts in London in August. Prince William and his wife Kate also visited Southport in October and paid tribute to the relief efforts. It was the couple’s first joint engagement since the princess finished chemotherapy.
An al-Qaeda training manual
If the terrorist motivation was not accepted, in October, Axel Rudakubana was also indicted for “possession of information […] likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism”, the police accusing him of having produced ricin, an extremely toxic poison, and of having possessed an Al-Qaeda training manual .
Ahead of his trial, he has already appeared in court several times, via video link from prison, but has refused to speak. At a hearing in mid-December, he refused to say whether he was pleading guilty or not. Consequently, the judge considered that he denied the charges against him. The trial is expected to last four weeks.
