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A London jury on Monday unanimously found Islamic State group follower Ali Harbi Ali guilty of murdering British lawmaker David Amess in a ferocious knife attack in October last year.
Ali told the trial that he had no regrets about killing father-of-five Amess after he voted in parliament for air strikes in Syria in 2014 and 2015.
The court at London’s Old Bailey heard that Ali, 26, stabbed Amess more than 20 times with a foot-long carving knife in Leigh-on-Sea, southeast England.
It took the jury just 18 minutes to reach a verdict on charges of murder and preparing acts of terrorism. He is to be sentenced on Wednesday.
Members of Amess’s family were in court as the verdict was read out, during which Ali refused to stand on religious grounds.
Ali, from north London, arranged an appointment with Amess, 69, by telling the politician’s office that he was a healthcare worker and wished to talk about local issues.
Knife-wielding Ali was apprehended at the scene of the murder in a church by two police officers armed only with batons and spray.
He had sent a manifesto to family and friends to try to justify his actions around the time of the attack.
‘Self-satisfied’
The court heard that Ali said “sorry” to Amess before killing him, after which his assistant Julie Cushion said he appeared “self-satisfied”.
During police interviews, Ali said that Amess suspected a “sting”, having been duped in the 1990s into talking about a made-up drug “cake” during a satirical television series.
“I felt like one minute I was sat down at the table talking to him and the next he was, sort of, dead,” Ali told police.
“But, yeah, it’s probably one of the strangest days… of my life now, you know?”
Jurors were told Ali had no mental health issues and he accepted much of the evidence against him.
The murder was the second killing of a British MP in five…
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Source : france24
