Trial begins for murder of British legislator

LONDON (AP) — A man who stabbed a British legislator to death last year during a voter meeting was a “committed Islamist terrorist” who spent years studying and planning possible attacks on legislators, a prosecutor said Monday.

Ali Harbi Ali, 26, sat on the bench of the defendants on Monday at the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales in London, at the start of a trial for the murder of conservative legislator David Amess, who was stabbed last October 16 during a routine meeting with voters in the auditorium of a church in the village from Leigh-on-Sea, in the east of England.

Ali, a Londoner of Somali descent, denies charges of murder and premeditated acts of terrorism.

Prosecutor Tom Little opened the trial by saying that the case “is nothing more than a murder” perpetrated because of a “twisted, perverse and violent ideology.”

“It was a murder committed by a young man who for many years had been planning an attack like this and who was, and still is, a committed, extremist and radicalized Islamist terrorist,” Little said.

The prosecutor added that Ali bought the knife he used to assault Amess five years earlier and that the now accused managed to enter the meeting with Amess posing as one of his voters.

Amess, 69, had been a member of Parliament since 1983. He was pronounced dead at the scene of the attack, which surprised the nation and unleashed calls for greater police protection for politicians during their public events.

The prosecutor went on to say that Ali had studied and planned attacks on legislators and the Parliament building since at least 2019. Such a vetting process included reconnaissance trips to the workplaces and homes of two other legislators, Mike Freer and Cabinet Member Michael Gove, according to Little.

The trial is expected to last about three weeks.