Teen accused of stabbing at English dance class in court…

LONDON (AP) — The teenager accused of killing three girls and wounding 10 other people in a stabbing attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class appeared in court Wednesday to face new charges of possessing of a deadly poison and a terror charge for possession of a weapon. al-Qaeda manual.

Axel Rudakubana, 18, refused to speak as he appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court via video link from prison shortly before the hearing.

Rudakubana, who is also accused of murdering three girls and stabbing 10 other people on July 29, was charged on Tuesday with producing the poison ricin found during a search of his home, Merseyside police said. Police also found a document on his computer containing an al-Qaeda training manual entitled: “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.

Rudakubana was charged in August over the stabbings in the Southport community, which police insisted on Tuesday had not been classified as a “terrorist incident” because the motive was not yet known. Police filed new charges on Tuesday for producing poison and possessing a terrorism manual.

The stabbing took place in the first week of the summer holidays, when about 20 young girls were dancing to Swift’s music at Hart Space, a community center that hosted everything from pregnancy workshops to boot camps for women.

Rudakubana was charged with three counts of murder in the deaths of Alice Dasilva Aguiar, 9, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Bebe King, 6, in the seaside town of Southport in northwest England.

He has also been charged with 10 counts of attempted murder in the eight children and two adults who were seriously injured. Leanne Lucas, who led the class, and John Hayes, who worked at a nearby business and ran to help, were credited by police with their efforts to protect the children.

The stabbings fueled far-right activists to stoke anger at immigrants and Muslims after social media wrongly identified the suspect – then unnamed – as an asylum seeker who had recently arrived in Britain by boat.

Within hours of a community vigil to mourn the Southport victims, an unruly mob attacked a mosque near the dance studio, threw rocks and beer bottles at law enforcement officers and set fire to a police van.

The riots spread across England and Northern Ireland and lasted a week. More than 1,200 people have been arrested over the disorder and hundreds have been jailed.

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