An Islamic State aspirant was sentenced on Wednesday to life in prison after killing a member of the British Parliament.
Ali Harbi Abi was convicted Monday on charges of murder and terrorism after he stabbed Sir David Amess more than 20 times while pretending to be one of Amess’s constituents last October.
“This was a murder that struck at the heart of our democracy,” Justice Nigel Sweeney said during Ali’s sentencing Wednesday.
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The politician’s murder was “beyond evil,” Amess’s family said in a statement after the sentencing, adding they would “forever shed tears for the man we have lost.”
Ali had consumed significant amounts of ISIS propaganda, leading him to become a supporter of the radical group, prosecutors told the jury.
The ISIS sympathizer scoped out the church where he assaulted Amess and planned to attack other members of Parliament, prosecutors said. Other targets included Cabinet Minister Michael Gove, who Ali claimed was “a harm to Muslims.”
Ali emailed Amess’s office on Sept. 27, 2021, claiming to be a healthcare worker moving to his constituency, which enabled him to attend an Oct. 15 meeting Amess was having with voters at a Methodist church, according to documents released during the trial. He stabbed and killed Amess at that meeting, jurors determined.
Ali claimed he wanted to travel to Syria to join ISIS, but it was too “difficult,” saying he stayed in the United Kingdom so he could “help Muslims here” instead.
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Ali didn’t express any regrets regarding the stabbing, saying, “If I thought I did anything wrong, I wouldn’t have done it.”
The U.K.’s Metropolitan Police declared the stabbing was a terrorist act on the day of the attack, which allowed its Counter Terrorism Command to lead the investigation. Police filed murder and terror charges against Ali on Oct. 21 of last year.
