Islamic State sympathizer sentenced to life for murder of British lawmaker

A young sympathizer of the jihadist group Islamic State was sentenced by a criminal court in London on Wednesday to life imprisonment for the assassination of British MP David Amess. The elected conservative had been stabbed twenty times while receiving his constituents in a church on October 15, 2021. A young Englishman of Somali origin, sympathizer of the jihadist group Islamic State, was sentenced on Wednesday April 13, to life in prison without the possibility of release for the murder of British MP David Amess, which shocked and moved the UK last autumn. In sentencing Ali Harbi Ali, 26, Judge Nigel Sweeney of the Criminal Court of the Old Bailey in London stressed that he had “no remorse or shame, on the contrary” for the stabbing murder of the elected official during a parliamentary session on October 15. “This is a murder that has struck at the heart of our democracy,” the judge said. Full life is a very rare sentence, which was imposed last September on police officer Wayne Couzens, who was convicted of the murder in March 2021 of Londoner Sarah Everard, as well as the murderer of MP Jo Cox, far-right supporter Thomas Mair. revenge”, premeditated “for a long time” and affecting an elected official carrying out his mission. Ali Harbi Ali, who was born and raised in London in a family of Somali origin, was therefore found guilty on Monday of murder and preparation for terrorist acts. The young man had pleaded not guilty, but declared last week at the hearing to have targeted the 69-year-old elected official because the latter had voted in favor of air strikes in Syria. Frustrated not to going to fight in Syria himself with the Islamic State group, the accused had said to himself that he had to “try to do something here to help the Muslims over there”. Leigh-on-Sea, 60 kilometers east of London. The elected Conservative had been stabbed about twenty times. Debate on the safety of elected officials His assistant, Julie Cushion, said in a press release that she could “never forget the cry” of her colleague Barbara at the time of the attack. She also described the attacker’s “smug and self-satisfied” look after the tragedy. “It breaks our hearts to know that our husband and father had to greet the killer with a friendly smile,” the police said. MP’s family in a press release. The death of David Amess, elected since 1983, had rekindled the trauma of the assassination of Labor elected Jo Cox in June 2016. This 41-year-old MP had been killed by several bullets and blows. knife a week before the British referendum on membership of the European Union. Both tragedies have prompted calls to strengthen the security of elected officials and to calm an electric political debate in recent years, especially since the exchanges around Brexit. acts of terrorismAli Harbi Ali had, according to British media, briefly completed a counter-radicalization programme, without being considered at risk by the security services. In addition to his full life sentence for the murder of David Amess, he was sentenced to life in prison for preparing acts of terrorism. He had considered killing other MPs and had prowled around Parliament armed with a knife last summer. He had conducted research on several elected officials and had gone several times near the home of Minister Michael Gove. Ali Harbi Ali had been arrested a few minutes after the tragedy, by two police officers armed only with truncheons and tear gas canisters. Uni has experienced several jihadist stabbing attacks in recent years, some claimed by the Islamic State group. But no claim has been made public since the death of David Amess. A month after the murder of David Amess and the day after the explosion of a taxi in front of a hospital in Liverpool (north of England), considered by the police as an attack, the government had raised to “serious” the level of the terrorist threat on British soil. It has since been downgraded to “important”. With AFP