Axel Rudakubana on Monday admitted committing the deadly attack last July. Officials later said he had been referred to a government counterterrorism program three times before his rampage.
An 18-year-old British man on Monday admitted to murdering three girls and attempting to kill 10 other people during a brutal knife attack at a dance class last July in Southport, England.
The defendant, Axel Rudakubana, unexpectedly pleaded guilty to all charges against him on the first day of his trial at Liverpool Crown Court.
Mr. Rudakubana admitted to killing Bebe King, 6, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, 9, who were taking part in a Taylor Swift-themed dance and bracelet-making class on July 29 during their summer break from school, and to the attempted murder of 10 people, including eight children and two adults.
After the stabbings, the police searched Mr. Rudakubana’s house and said they had found ricin, a lethal toxin, and a PDF file titled “Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants: The Al Qaeda Training Manual.” Mr. Rudakubana was subsequently charged with production of a biological toxin and with “possessing information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.”
The government later confirmed that Mr. Rudakubana had been referred to an official counterterrorism program, Prevent, at least three times before the attack in Southport, when he was just 13 and 14 years old, because of his obsession with violence.
Yvette Cooper, Britain’s home secretary, announced a public inquiry into the lack of action on the warnings, saying that the families and the people of Southport “need answers about what happened leading up to this attack.”