United Kingdom: the murderer of three girls sentenced to a minimum of 52 years in prison

Axel Rudakubana, an 18-year-old young man who stabbed three girls to death in July in England, was sentenced Thursday to life in prison with a minimum term of 52 years for this attack which sparked violent riots.

It is very likely that he will never be releasedsaid Judge Julian Goose as he delivered his verdict at Liverpool Magistrates’ 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 while taking part in a dance class inspired by pop star Taylor Swift in Southport, northwest England.

This attack represents one of the most painful moments in our country’s historyPrime Minister Keir Starmer said after the verdict.

You are not alonehe told the relatives of the victims.

We stand with you in mourning.

This triple murder shocked the country and sparked anti-immigration riots for several days in dozens of cities.

Axel Rudakubana, who was 17 years old at the time of the events, showed violence so extreme that he is difficult to understand the attack, the judge said.

The body of the youngest girl, Bebe King, 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.

Attack premeditated and planned

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.

On Thursday, he had to be taken out of the dock twice because of his behavior. I feel very bad, I need to see a doctorhe yelled, saying he hadn’t eaten in 10 days.

He did not attend the verdict.

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 left us completely broken.said Alexandra and Sergio Aguiar, Alice’s parents, in a statement read to the court.

This attack was premeditated and plannedsaid prosecutor Deanna Heer. The beatings inflicted on two of the deceased girls were particularly atrociousreflecting the sadism of the assailant, underlined the prosecutor.

In police custody, Axel Rudakubana declared that he was very happy that these children are dead, she added.

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 killsaid Deanna Heer, referring to the lack of qualification terrorist for these murders.

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.

He was fascinated by extreme violenceand possessed, among other things, documents on the genocide in Rwanda.

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 at the age of 13, but returned to attack his former classmates, whom he accused of racist harassment, with a hockey stick.

Many opportunities were missed to stop him: he had been reported three times to an extremism prevention program, notably for having learned about the killings in American schools during computer science class.

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.