Trial opens into knife murder of British lawmaker Amess

By SYLVIA HUI
Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — A prosecutor says a man who stabbed a veteran British lawmaker to death while he was meeting voters last year was a “committed Islamist terrorist” who had spent years researching and planning potential attacks on lawmakers. Ali Harbi Ali, 26, appeared in the dock Monday at London’s Central Criminal Court as a trial opened into the murder of Conservative lawmaker David Amess. The 69-year-old lawmaker was attacked on Oct. 16 during a routine meeting with constituents in the town of Leigh-on-Sea in eastern England. Ali, a London man with Somali heritage, denies charges of murder and preparing acts of terrorism. Prosecutor Tom Little said the case was a “cold and calculated murder” carried out because of a “twisted and violent ideology.”