[Dawn] The man accused of murdering UK politician David Amess in a church last year said in court on Thursday that he was motivated by a grievance against politicians who voted to bomb Syria.
Ali Harbi Ali,
...Somali-Brit who first decided to kill a politician in the name of ISIS, then settled on Sir David.... 26, is accused of stabbing Amess more than 20 times with a foot-long carving knife in Leigh-on-Sea, southeast England, in October 2021.
The university drop-out told London’s Old Bailey court that he "decided to do it because I felt that if I could kill someone who made decisions to kill Moslems, it could prevent further harm to those Moslems".
Frustrated that he could not get out to Syria and fight himself, Ali told jurors: "I decided if I couldn’t.... help the Moslems (in Syria), I would do something here". He targeted Amess because he had voted in favour of Arclight airstrike
 ...KABOOM! ...
s against the fighters of the krazed killer Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group in Syria in 2015.
Asked what he hoped the killing would achieve, Ali said: "For one, he can’t vote again...and perhaps send a message to his colleagues." Ali’s other targets included Cabinet minister Michael Gove, according to a note found on his phone.
"That was plans I had to attack and hopefully kill Michael Gove at the time. "I believe he was someone who was a harm to Moslems," he added.
LONG-SERVING MP
Ali, from north London, arranged an appointment with Amess, 69, by telling the politician’s office that he was a healthcare worker and wished to talk about local issues. Amess, a father-of-five, was a long-serving member of parliament for Prime Minister Boris Johnson
...pro-Brexit British prime minister, succeeding no-Brexit Theresa May. BoJo is noted as much for his sparkling personality and his hair as for his Conservative policies....
’s ruling Conservative party. Prosecutor Tom Little earlier told court that Ali had been determined to carry out a terror attack "for a number of years", and had bought the knife allegedly used to kill the politician in 2016.
Ali was spotted outside other MPs’ constituency offices while mobile phone data placed him near parliament seven times between July and September 2021, Little has noted.
The killing of Amess, the second of a British MP within five years, shocked the country and led to calls for better security for elected representatives. In 2016, a right-wing bad boy who shouted "Britannia first" shot and stabbed Labour politician Jo Cox to death in the febrile run-up to the Brexit referendum.
A post-mortem examination showed Amess suffered 21 stab wounds to his face, arms, legs and torso, as well as injuries to both hands that were consistent with defending himself, the court heard. 
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