Starmer orders investigation after killer pleads guilty to stabbing three children

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British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Tuesday that the murder of three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class last year must lead to a “fundamental change” in the way the British state protects its citizens. citizens, as well as to take into account threats from violent individuals whose behavior and motivations challenge the traditional definition of terrorism.

Starmer also said authorities needed to answer “difficult questions” about why the violence-obsessed killer was not arrested before stabbing three young girls to death in the seaside town last July.

In a televised statement, the Prime Minister announced that a public inquiry would be opened into the failings in the case of Axel Rudakubana, who injured eight other children, their instructor and a passerby.

Rudakubana, 18, unexpectedly changed his plea to guilty on Monday, the first day of his trial at Liverpool Crown Court. He is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday.

The plea means details that had been withheld from the public in an attempt to ensure a fair trial can now be reported.

They include the fact that Rudakubana was referred three times to the government’s anti-extremism program, Prevent, when he was 13 and 14, and that he was in contact with several state agencies – which did not everyone understood the danger he represented.

It also emerged that his father had intervened to stop him from going to his old school a week before the murders, apparently worried that he might have violent intentions.

“The tragedy of the Southport murders must be a line in the sand for Britain,” Starmer said.

Murder and disinformation

Rudakubana launched his attack on the first day of summer school vacation, attacking a class where two dozen girls were learning yoga and dancing to Taylor Swift songs.

He killed 9-year-old Alice Da Silva Aguiar, 7-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe and 6-year-old Bebe King. Eight other girls, aged between 7 and 13, were injured, along with instructor Leanne Lucas and John Hayes, who were working at a business. next door and intervened.

When news of the killings broke, far-right activists and politicians in the UK and abroad seized on false reports that the attacker was an asylum seeker named “Ali Al- Shakati” recently arrived in the UK.

In fact, Rudakubana was born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents, and no one named “Ali Al-Shakati” exists in the UK. One of the first influencers to share this name was arrested, but released without charges.

However, the false claim that the attack was carried out by an asylum seeker has been repeated by some of the UK and Europe’s leading far-right figures, helping to fuel violent protests in several regions of England and Northern Ireland.

Rioters clashed with police as they attacked centers housing asylum seekers, in one case setting fire to a building with people inside. Hundreds of those involved were later charged, while counter-protests the following day in many areas helped avert what could have been a second day of violence.

The new terrorism

Right-wing critics have accused Starmer’s government of withholding information about the suspect following the attack, but Starmer – a former director of public prosecutions – said there was no conspiracy by the silence, just a desire to see justice done by enforcing the rule. of law.

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“The only losers if the details had been disclosed would have been the victims and their families, as this risked a failure of the trial,” he explained.

Police and prosecutors also question why the attack was not classified as an act of terrorism, when Rudakubana is accused of possessing an Al-Qaeda manual and ricin poison, as well as murder and attempted murder.

Starmer said the case showed that “terrorism has changed” and that the law may need to be changed to deal with “a new threat… (from) acts of extreme violence carried out by loners, misfits, young men in their rooms.

“It’s a new threat, it’s not what we would have usually considered terrorism when the definitions were developed, when the guidelines were put in place, when the framework was put in place and we need to recognize it here today. This is clearly extreme violence. It is clearly intended to terrorize.

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