SUSPECT PLEADS NOT GUILTY TO MURDER OF BRITISH LAWMAKER SIR DAVID AMESS

Tue 21 December 2021:

At a court hearing, the man accused of killing British parliamentarian David Amess in a church where he was meeting voters in October pleaded not guilty.

Ali Harbi Ali, 25, is accused of stabbing Amess multiple times in a church hall in Southend, England, where he was meeting voters from his constituency.

On Tuesday, the suspect, who is accused of murder and planning terrorist acts, pleaded not guilty to both charges before Mr Justice Sweeney at the Old Bailey.

Ali, the son of an ex-media adviser to a former Somali prime minister, was in the dock at the court in the English capital, London, when the senior judge appeared remotely from Manchester Crown Court.

In March of next year, he will go on trial.

Ali stood with his arms crossed, wearing a blue sweatshirt and grey jogging bottoms, and spoke only to confirm his identity and enter his pleas during the brief hearing.

He was taken into custody and remanded.

The assassination of 69-year-old Amess, a father of five children, came five years after Jo Cox, another British member of parliament, was murdered on the street, prompting calls for better legislative protection.

Amess, a member of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party, was shot and killed at the Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea, northeast of London, despite paramedics’ efforts.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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