LONDON: Britain should not redefine terrorism in the wake of last summer\u2019s murders at a Taylor Swift-themed dance event but the government should consider a new law to tackle those bent on mass killings, the UK\u2019s terrorism watchdog said.
\nAxel Radukabana, 18, stabbed to death three young girls and wounded 10 others last July in the northern English town of Southport, an act of violence Prime Minister Keir Starmer called one of the most harrowing moments in Britain\u2019s history.
\nHowever, his crime was not classed as terrorism as there was no evidence that he was inspired by any particular political or religious ideology, a necessary requirement, something which drew criticism from government opponents as he was also convicted of possessing the deadly poison ricin and an Al-Qaeda training manual.
\nAfter Radukabana\u2019s jailing, Starmer himself said terrorism had changed, with some individuals fixated on extreme violence, seemingly for its own sake, and police and security services have warned of a growth in the number of would-be terrorists whose motivation was hard to determine.
\nClassing an action as terrorism allows the authorities to use extra powers and gives judges the ability to impose harsher sentences.
\nIn a report into the Southport murders published on Thursday, Jonathan Hall, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, rejected changing the existing definition, saying \u201ctreating every violent eccentric as a potential terrorist would skew the threat level and divert resources.\u201d
\nHe said it would risk the prosecution of those who were \u201cby no stretch of the imagination\u201d terrorists and lead to unacceptable restrictions on freedom of expression.
\n\u201cThe risk of unintended consequences through rushed reform is extremely high,\u201d his report said.
\nHowever Hall said there should be a new offense to address loners who planned to kill two or more people, with a penalty of life in prison, allowing the authorities to target those intent on mass killings, like Radukabana.
\nDays of nationwide rioting followed the Southport attacks, fueled by disinformation on social media, and later there were accusations from government critics of a cover-up because police had released few details about the suspect to prevent prejudicing a later trial.
\nHall said \u201cnear silence\u201d was no longer an option and if the police did not take the lead with accurate information, others would fill the gap.
\n\u201cThe disinformation generated on social media, combined with widespread allegations of a \u2018cover-up\u2019, risked far more prejudice to any trial than the placement of undisputed facts about the attacker in the public domain,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONDON: Britain should not redefine terrorism in the wake of last summer\u2019s murders at a Taylor Swift-themed dance event but the government should consider a new law to tackle those bent on mass killings, the UK\u2019s terrorism watchdog said. Axel Radukabana, 18, stabbed to death three young girls and wounded 10 others last July in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":78316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78299"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78317,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78299\/revisions\/78317"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}