The teenager accused in a stabbing rampage that killed three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in England has been charged with producing the deadly poison ricin and now faces a terror offense for possessing a jihadi training manual, police said Tuesday.
Axel Rudakubana, 18, who is charged with murdering three girls and stabbing 10 other people in July, produced the deadly poison ricin that was later found in his home, Merseyside Police said. Police also found he had a computer file with an Al-Qaida training manual titled: “Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants: The Al-Qaeda Training Manual.”
The new charges against Rudakubana are for allegedly making a biological toxin, ricin, which violates a law prohibiting biological weapons in the U.K., and for “possessing information, namely a pdf file … of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism,” police said. The latter charge is barred under the terms of a U.K. terrorism law.
Ricin is derived from the castor bean plant and is one of the world’s deadliest toxins. It has no known vaccine or antidote and kills cells by preventing them from making proteins.
Police stressed that the July attack has not been classed as a “terrorist incident,” which would require a motive to be known.
Rudakubana, who police said was born in Wales, already faced three counts of murder over the July deaths of Alice Dasilva Aguiar, 9, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Bebe King, 6, in the seaside town of Southport in northwest England.
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He also has been charged with 10 counts of attempted murder for the eight children and two adults who were injured.
The stabbings were used by far-right activists to stoke anger at immigrants and Muslims after misinformation spread on social media identifying him as an asylum seeker and misreporting his name.
Violence spread from Southport and led to rioting across England and Northern Ireland that lasted a week.
In a statement on Tuesday, Chief Constable Chief Constable Serena Kennedy urged the public not to engage in speculation about the case.
“Don’t believe everything you read on social media,” Kennedy said. “We must not lose sight of the families of Elsie, Bebe, and Alice, who are still grieving, and the families of those children and adults who were injured and affected by what happened on that day. We all need to do the right thing by them to ensure the justice process is not prejudiced.”