A man has been found guilty of murdering the MP Sir David Amess in his constituency.
Ali Harbi Ali, 26, from Kentish Town in London, was also found guilty of preparing acts of terrorism during the trial at the Old Bailey.
Harbi Ali had previous denied all the charges and claimed that he had targeted the Southend West MP over his stance on air strikes in Syria.
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The jury took just 18 minutes to return their guilty verdict after the judge had directed them that Harbi Ali had no viable legal defence for killing Sir David.
The murder took place on 15 October 2021 while the MP was holding a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea.
Ali pretended that he was an NHS employee moving to the area in order to gain entry to the meeting, before stabbing the 69-year-old Conservative MP to death.
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Directing the jury, Mr Justice Sweeney said: "Having considered the defendant's account taken at its highest in his favour, I direct you, as the judge, that the killing was neither in lawful self-defence, nor in lawful defence of another, nor in the lawful prevention of crime.
"Because that is a direction in law, the prosecution are entitled to rely on it and you must follow it in your deliberations.
“No other defence arises."
In closing, prosecutor Tom Little QC had said that the evidence against Harbi Ali was ‘utterly overwhelming and convincing’.
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He said: "I suggest you will never forget the body-worn footage of the defendant still holding the bloody knife he had had for five years for just such an attack in that church on Sir David Amess."
He added that the defendant had been ‘smiling, almost enjoying reliving and explaining what he intended to do and what he had done’ stating that he was ‘revelling, you may think, in his terrorist acts’.
Little continued: "In Ali Harbi Ali's world he has done nothing wrong.
"But you live in the real world, and in the real world you cannot take the law into your hands, hence he has no defence to the charge of murder."
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Harbi Ali’s defence barrister Tracy Ayling QC said that the defendant’s case was that he had intended to ‘save lives’ in Syria through his actions.
She said: "His purpose was, as he puts it now, to save lives at the expense of Sir David's but also his own.”
Jurors were also told during the trial that the defendant had investigated and planned other attacks on MPs, including Michael Gove who he thought was ‘a harm to Muslims’.
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During his evidence, Harbi Ali said that he had wanted to travel over to Syria to join Islamic State but found it too ‘difficult’ and decided to – as he thought – ‘help Muslims here’.
Tom Wood