Luigi Mangione, the alleged killer of an American boss of the health insurance sector in New York, has been charged with murder “considered an act of terrorism,” Manhattan prosecutor Alvin Bragg announced on Tuesday.
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“It was an assassination that was supposed to arouse terror,” the magistrate underlined during a press conference, referring to the “premeditated and unscrupulous” murder of Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthCare, at the 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.
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.
