A veteran British Conservative lawmaker was “assassinated” by a “committed, fanatical, radicalised Islamist terrorist,” a court heard.
Sir David Amess, a 69-year-old father of five, had served as the member of Parliament for the Southend West constituency since 1997. He was brutally attacked on Oct. 15, 2021, when meeting constituents in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, and later died of multiple stab wounds to the chest.
Ali Harbi Ali, 25, a British national of Somali descent, was charged with the murder and “the preparation of terrorist acts” and appeared in court on Monday afternoon.
Tom Little QC, opening the case at the Old Bailey, told jurors: “This was nothing less than an assassination for terrorist purposes. It is a crime to which, we say, he has no defence.”
Little said: “This is a case involving a cold and calculated murder, a murder carried out in a place of worship. A murder carried out because of a warped and twisted and violent ideology.”
He said Ali had been planning such an attack for many years and was a “committed, fanatical, radicalised Islamist terrorist.”
The prosecutor said the attack was “no spur-of-the-moment decision,” as Ali bought the knife used to attack Amess five years earlier.
He said Ali had “for a number of years been determined to carry out an act of domestic terrorism,” and carried out reconnaissance on targets including Cabinet secretary Michael Gove.
On the day of the murder, Ali appeared “relaxed and chatty” when he arrived at the meeting venue, the court heard.
Ali told Amess he wanted to talk about foreign affairs, saying that he knew the veteran MP had initially supported the Iraq war but had changed his mind.
After Ali’s phone made a notification sound, he said “sorry” and then pulled out a knife and stabbed Amess multiple times in a “vicious and frenzied attack,” the prosecutor said.
Ali then waved his bloodied knife and said, “I killed him.”
“I want every Parliament minister who signed up for the bombing of Syria, who agreed to the Iraqi war, to die,” he allegedly said.
Ali claimed it was a “revenge attack” done “in the name of Allah,” the court heard.
Ali assumed that firearms officers would arrive on the scene and “hoped that he would be shot, killed, a martyr for the terrorist cause,” Little said.
But he was confronted only by two plainclothes officers armed only with a baton and incapacitant spray, who pinned him to the floor and arrested him.
