The teenager who killed three little girls in a knife attack at the end of July in England had to be evacuated Thursday from the room of the Liverpool court which is to determine his sentence, after having disrupted the start of the hearing.
• Also read: United Kingdom: alleged perpetrator of murder of three girls, attack causing riots, pleads guilty
Alex Rudakubana, 18, who arrived at court wearing a surgical mask, began screaming once he arrived in the dock.
“I need to talk to a doctor. I feel sick,” he repeated, asking the judge “not to continue,” which led the judge to take him out of the room, where the hearing continued.
According to several media outlets, the accused had to be taken to hospital for treatment earlier in the day, which has not been officially confirmed. The hearing started an hour late.
Axel Rudakubana pleaded guilty on Monday, to everyone’s surprise, to the murders of Bebe King, 6, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Alice da Silva, 9.
They were stabbed on July 29, 2024 in a knife attack that horrified the United Kingdom, and sparked violent anti-immigration riots.
While in custody, he said he was “glad” the children were dead, according to prosecutor Deanna Heer.
He risks a heavy prison sentence, but not an irreducible life sentence due to his age, 17 years old at the time of the facts.
The teenager attacked the girls and injured ten others during a dance class inspired by star Taylor Swift in the town of Southport.
The confessions of Axel Rudakubana, who gave no explanation for his actions, cut short the trial, initially scheduled to last four weeks.
“None of us will ever be able to answer this terrible question: why? (…) Why did he do that? Why was he not prevented from doing so?” asked Andrew Brown, founder of the residents’ group Stand up for Southport, to AFP.
“Lone wolves”
The media restrictions imposed to ensure a fair trial were lifted on Monday, and the British press revealed the past of this violent boy, almost out of school at 13, living in confinement and fascinated by mass killings.
Many missed opportunities to prevent him from taking action also came to light.
-The teenager had been reported to an extremism prevention program three times.
Weapons and a training manual from the jihadist organization Al-Qaeda were found at Axel Rudakubana’s home, who also admitted to having produced an extremely toxic poison, ricin.
This attack is, however, not considered “terrorist”, due to failure to detect an ideology in him.
The leader of the Conservative opposition, Kemi Badenoch, and the leader of the anti-immigration Reform UK party, Nigel Farage, denounced the government’s “silence” on the profile of the attacker.
Fascination morbide
Axel Rudakubana was born in 2006 in Wales, into a Christian family originally from Rwanda.
Diagnosed with autism, he was excluded from his college after bringing a knife there, but returned to attack his former classmates with a hockey stick. He accused them, according to the Times, of racist harassment.
Once out of the traditional school system, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, the teenager became increasingly isolated.
He was fascinated by genocides, particularly that in Rwanda, during which members of his extended family died, according to media reports.
Axel Rudakubana had a “morbid interest in death”, prosecutor Ursula Doyle said, adding that the teenager had “shown no signs of remorse”.
The attack sparked a wave of anti-immigration and Islamophobic riots in dozens of towns in England and Northern Ireland, after far-right accounts spread rumors online about the identity of the suspect.
For several days, hotels housing asylum seekers and mosques were targeted.
Keir Starmer, elected a few days earlier, had promised the greatest firmness, and by mid-December, more than 410 people had been convicted for this violence.
