Police say British teen accused of fatally stabbing three girls also made poison and carried terror manual

LONDON – The teenager accused of a stabbing that left three girls dead at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in England has been charged with producing the deadly poison ricin and now faces a terror offense for being in possession of a jihadist training manual, police said Tuesday.

Axel Rudakubana, 18, who is accused of murdering three girls and the stabbing of ten other people on July 29 produced the deadly poison ricin which was later found in his home, Merseyside Police said. Police also discovered that he had a computer file containing an al-Qaeda training manual titled: “Military Studies in Jihad against the Tyrants.”

Ricin is derived from the castor plant and is one of the world’s deadliest toxins. There is no known vaccine or antidote and it kills cells by preventing them from making proteins.

Police emphasized that the stabbing has not been classified as a ‘terrorist incident’, for which a motive would have to be known.

The stabbing took place in the first week of the summer holidays, when girls aged between six and 11 took part in a two-hour session led by a yoga instructor and a dance instructor.

Witnesses described hearing blood-curdling screams and seeing children running from the studio covered in blood.

The first officers to arrive were shocked to find so many victims, Chief Serena Kennedy said.

Rudakubana was already facing three counts of murder following the July deaths of Alice Dasilva Aguiar, 9, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Bebe King, 6, in the seaside town of Southport in north-west England.

He has also been charged with 10 counts of attempted murder in the eight children and two adults who were injured.

The stabbings were used by far-right activists to stoke anger against immigrants and Muslims after misinformation spread on social media identifying him as an asylum seeker and misstating his name.

The violence spread from Southport and led to riots in England and Northern Ireland that lasted a week.

Rudakubana was born in Wales to Rwandan parents, police said. British media reported that he was raised as a Christian.

Dr. Renu Bindra of the UK Health Security Agency said: “There was no evidence that victims, emergency workers or members of the public were exposed to ricin, either as part of the incident or afterwards,” and that the risk to the public was low. No ricin was found at the scene of the stabbing.

Ricin is estimated to be 6,000 times more toxic than cyanide and can be fatal if inhaled, ingested, injected or swallowed. Two millionths of an ounce – roughly the weight of a grain of salt – is enough to kill an adult.

In recent years, several people have been tried around the world on charges of attempting to use ricin for murder or terrorist attacks, but examples of successful fatal use are rare.

Bulgarian defector Georgi Markov was murdered in London in 1978 when a pinhead-sized pellet laced with ricin was injected into his thigh – allegedly through a rigged umbrella.

___

This story has been corrected to indicate that the terror charge is related to the jihadist training manual.