Everything indicated that it was going to be a long and painful trial for the victims’ families. And yet, it only lasted a few minutes. Long enough for Axel Rudakubana, 18, to have changed his initial plea from “not guilty” – the one he made at the preliminary hearing before the judge last December – to “guilty”. In a low voice, without getting up from the dock or removing the mask that covered part of his face, the accused admitted before the Liverpool court that was judging him that he murdered Alice de Silva (9 years old), Bebe King (6) and Elsie Dot (7). It was on July 29, 2024, when they were participating in a dance class choreographed and music by Taylor Swift in the coastal town of Southport, northwest of England.
Rudakubana was 17 years old when the tragedy occurred. The outbreak of violence that hit the streets of many cities in the United Kingdom, when the idea that the perpetrator of the murders was a Muslim asylum seeker spread online, forced the judge to reveal the identity of the suspect and his origins. Born in Cardiff, to parents from Rwanda who professed Protestant Christianity, he was a lonely young man obsessed with genocide and extreme violence who spent hours and hours feeding his obsessions in front of the computer screen.
The accused has also admitted to the attempted murder of eight other children and two teachers; possession of a knife; the homemade manufacture of a deadly biological toxin, ricin; and possession of material related to terrorist activities, including an Al Qaeda training manual. Keir Starmer’s Government withheld information on these last two data for a time, to prevent a wave of violence from breaking out again that ended with the arrest and imprisonment of hundreds of people.
“You have just pleaded guilty to each of the crimes of which you are accused. I will announce my sentence next Thursday at 11:00 in the morning [el día 23 de enero]“Magistrate Julian Goose told Rudakubana. “But you will understand that it is inevitable that the sentence will be life imprisonment.” [prisión permanente revisable, en el Reino Unido]”, he warned him.
The judge has apologized to the victims’ relatives, who were not present in the courtroom, convinced that the trial itself would not begin until the next day.
