Terror suspect posed as Christian before killing MP

The jury trial into the murder of David Amess last year has heard how the alleged Islamist terrorist feigned an interest in churches and Christianity before committing the act.

Ali Harbi Ali denies the murder of the Southend West MP during a constituency surgery in a Methodist church in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex on 15 October last year. It has now been detailed that Ali posed as a Christian who was about to move into the area in order secure a meeting with Amess. Jurors have been told that Ali stabbed Amess 21 times at the meeting and waved before he was stopped by unarmed police officers.

Prosecutor Tom Little QC took the jury through a timeline of events leading up to the 69-year-old Tory MP’s death. He said that on 27 September, Ali, whom the jury heard was a trained radiographer, emailed Amess’s office to ask about a meeting. In his email he said that he ‘wanted to get to know my future MP’, expressed that he ‘would like to know his plans, if any, for the hospital and workers’ and ‘as someone interested in Christianity’, wanted to know details of the situation in Southend with regard to churches losing attendances and struggle with upkeep.

Little had told the jury that Ali was a ‘fanatical radicalised Islamist terrorist’ who stabbed Amess in the neck after seeing an Islamic State video on how to carry out a stabbing attack. Little also told the jury that Ali had undertaken web searches last September relating to the Housing Minister Michael Gove, the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and the London MP Mike Freer.