“It is very likely that he will never be released”: accused of the murder of three little girls, Axel Rudakubana was sentenced to 52 years in prison

Axel Rudakubana, an 18-year-old young man who stabbed three girls to death in July in England, was sentenced this Thursday, January 23 to a minimum sentence of 52 years in prison for this attack which shocked the country and sparked violent riots last summer. “It is very likely that he will never be released,” Judge Julian Goose said as he delivered his verdict at Liverpool Crown Court. Throughout the hearing on Thursday, chilling details of the murders of Bebe King, 6, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Alice da Silva, 9, on July 29, 2024, were revealed. They were chased and stabbed during of a dance class inspired by star Taylor Swift in Southport, an attack that sparked anti-immigration riots for several days in dozens of towns.

Axel Rudakubana, who was 17 years old at the time of the events, showed “such extreme violence” that it is “difficult to understand” the attack, the judge said. Bebe King’s body bore more than 120 knife marks. Eight other children and two adults were injured. “If he could, he would have killed every child, as well as every adult in his path,” added the magistrate. Axel Rudakubana pleaded guilty on Monday, cutting short the trial, initially scheduled to last four weeks. He could not be sentenced to irreducible life imprisonment because of his age at the time of the attack. He gave no explanation for his actions.

“I feel very bad”

This Thursday, he had to be taken out of the dock twice because of his behavior. “I feel very bad, I have to see a doctor,” he shouted, saying he had not eaten for 10 days. Relatives of the victims were in tears in court where the prosecutor gave the horrifying account of the attack. “The little girl of our dreams was taken from us in such a horrible and unfair way that it completely broke us,” Alexandra and Sergio Aguiar, Alice’s parents, said in a statement read in court.

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This attack was “premeditated and planned,” said prosecutor Deanna Heer, describing victims attacked from the back and stabbed multiple times, in a rampage of violence. In police custody, Axel Rudakubana said he was “very happy” that these children were dead, she added. In tears and shocked by the murderer’s agitation at the hearing, some of the families left the room when the description of the injuries began. Those inflicted on two of the deceased girls were “particularly atrocious”, reflecting the “sadism” of the assailant, the prosecutor stressed. Videos from surveillance cameras showed children fleeing the chaos of the dance hall screaming, or a little girl, crying silently, being rescued in the toilet by a police officer. “There is nothing that associates it with any political or religious ideology […] His only goal was to kill,” said Deanna Heer, referring to the lack of “terrorist” qualification for these murders.

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Deadly attack in Southport: little girls killed, teenage immigrant suspect… Story of a tragedy that sets England ablaze

The police found in his home a machete, arrows, an Al-Qaeda manual in which he learned to make a poison, ricin, and numerous images of torture, decapitation or rape.