Media Portrayed Boy as Quiet, Christian, Choir Boy - Now He's Accused of Islamist Terror Plotting
When a teenage boy in the United Kingdom was accused of brutally murdering three young girls who were taking part in a Taylor Swift-themed dance recital in a knife attack in late July, touching off riots, the government and media — but I repeat myself, given that this is the U.K. — assured us all that any intimation that this was an Islamist act was disinformation and/or misinformation.
The suspect, Axel Rudakubana, now 18, was supposedly a “quiet choir boy” from a Christian family. Say anything else and you’ll be thrown in the clink — literally, since this, again, is the U.K.
Remember this warning, for instance?
‘We do have dedicated police officers who are scouring social media to look for this material, and then follow up with arrests.’
The director of public prosecutions of England and Wales warns that sharing online material of riots could be an offencehttps://t.co/PYaeP7gPAQ pic.twitter.com/kOGWDPrlyz
— Sky News (@SkyNews) August 7, 2024
Now, it’s unclear how many people were arrested for claiming that this was a religiously motivated act — and that the religion that motivated it wasn’t Christianity — but, it turns out they might not have been wrong. And even the government is admitting that now.
Earlier this week, quite quietly, Rudakubana was charged with producing the biological toxin ricin and possessing al-Qaeda material.
This courtroom drawing is all we are being allowed to see of Axel Rudakubana. Why ?
And since when were those appearing in court allowed to cover their faces?
Are we seriously meant to accept that the only pictures are childhood ones presumably meant to court sympathy ? pic.twitter.com/FB94vVpDSd
— Peter Whittle (@prwhittle) November 1, 2024
According to the U.K. Telegraph, this material was found during a search of the young man’s home in Southport — a Liverpool suburb where the murders were committed — back in August, although the terrorism charges are very much a new thing.
“The ricin was found in a search of Rudakubana’s home in early August, but health officials said the risk to the public and emergency workers was low,” the Telegraph reported.
Also found was a PDF titled “Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants: The al-Qaeda Training Manual.”
A spokesman for U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer insisted that there was no information being withheld from the public.
“That’s not correct. Charging decisions are independently made by the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service], and I would point you to the CPS’s statements and statements from the police. It’s for them to speak to those decisions,” the spokesman said.
However, those running for leadership of the opposition Conservative Party were unconvinced.
“As the dad of three daughters, the Southport attacks hit me personally. Of course the legal process needs to be respected, but I am seriously concerned that facts may have been withheld from the public here,” said Robert Jenrick, one of the two contenders. “The government and authorities told us for months they were not treating this as a terrorist incident. But today the attacker has been charged with a terrorist offense, and it’s been revealed that he’d allegedly been reading al-Qaeda manuals.
“This atrocity was of immense public concern. Any suggestion of a cover-up will permanently damage public trust in whether we’re being told the truth about crime in our country. Keir Starmer must urgently explain to the country what he knew about the Southport attack and when he learned it.
“Across the board, the hard reality of mass migration is being covered up. We need the truth, and we need to change.”
Kemi Badenoch, who is also running to be the leader of the Conservatives, said there are “serious questions to be asked of the police, the CPS and also of Keir Starmer’s response to the whole situation.”
“Parliament is the right place for this to happen. While we must abide by the rules of contempt of court and not prejudice this case, it is important that there is appropriate scrutiny,” she said on X.
After the Southport murders and the ensuing protests and riots, some people asked me why I wasn’t commenting. This is why.
Too many on all sides rush to conclusions before all the facts are clear. As more information emerges, it is quite clear that there are serious questions… https://t.co/FfzoL5Ih45
— Kemi Badenoch (@KemiBadenoch) October 29, 2024
And just a reminder for those of you with limited memory retention, this was a pretty big deal when it happened, especially when it came to proving the alleged perpetrator’s religion.
While some initial accounts about Rudakubana being an asylum seeker were wrong — he was born in Cardiff, Wales to Rwandan parents, apparently — the media took great pains to assure us all he wasn’t a Muslim.
Southport stabbings: Teen suspect was a ‘quiet choir boy who never left home’ neighbours reveal:https://t.co/D8wJl4bz8Ghttps://t.co/D8wJl4bz8G
— The Daily Record (@Daily_Record) August 1, 2024
From the U.K. Daily Mirror:
The suspect accused of carrying out a stabbing spree in August [sic] on Monday was described by a neighbour as a “quiet choir boy” with a family heavily involved in the local church.
Teenager Axel Rudakubana will turn 18 on Wednesday, August 7. He is accused of killing Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine with a curved-blade kitchen knife. He is also charged with the attempted murder of yoga class instructor Leanne Lucas, businessman John Hayes, and eight children – who cannot be named for legal reasons – as well as with possession of a kitchen knife with a curved blade
Rudakubana’s Christian father and stay-at-home mother were described as “ordinary” and “struggling to make a go of things here”. A source said the family was heavily involved with the local church.
And from the U.K. Guardian, when officials decided to release Rudakubana’s identity despite the fact he was under 18 when he committed the acts, in part because he would soon be 18 and in part because they wanted to dispel “misinformation”:
The decision came after incorrect identities and false claims, including that a Muslim immigrant had been arrested for murder, were shared online after the attack, and after clashes between the police and far-right rioters. In Southport on Tuesday night, police intervened when activists targeted a mosque, with five arrests made as a result of the disorder, during which missiles were thrown and police sustained minor injuries.
Again, Rudakubana may not have been an immigrant himself, but others on social media seemed to be more invested in dunking on conservatives via the religious aspect:
Silly woman. We do know he is not a Muslim…his Christian name is Axel, his parents came from Rwanda the site of another horrendous genocide
— Hello it’s me – Elsie (@elsiepr27460077) August 22, 2024
Axel Rudakubana, who committed the murders, was a Christian, not Muslim. You are committing a hate crime against Muslims by incorrectly identifying him as a Muslim.https://t.co/cM0umnrmlg
— Name cannot be blank (@jensbtc) August 20, 2024
The Figure of Axel Rudakubana, the Mass Stabbing Perpetrator Triggered Major Riots in England, Not Muslim Immigrants…it’s Christian (altar boy) 😀🤭
— Ari Raharjo (@raharjo_ari1979) August 14, 2024
Yes, laughter at the other side being “wrong” here. Three little girls are dead and the left was busy dunking on those who pointed out that this looked suspiciously like an Islamist terror attack by pointing out — either with what seemed to be concealed joy or with unconcealed joy — that he was in fact a Christian. Only he wasn’t.
There’s no solace in being right about this, mind you, and the fevered rhetoric of keyboard warriors all across the board is to be lamented. But, at some point, the murders of these innocent girls became a symbol of a government — Labour or Tory, it doesn’t matter — with an open-borders immigration policy that didn’t care about the social changes that immigration hath wrought. Rudakubana’s immigration status was trivial; the fact is that this looked an awful lot like radical Islamism, something that the West has imported way too much of.
And when the people of the U.K. became angry, the government threw them in jail — not just for rioting, which would be expected, but for sharing information the authorities deemed inconvenient. It turns out much of that may not have been untrue. The media just played along, because that’s apparently their role in all of this.
In other words, just when you thought you couldn’t have any more contempt for the media than you already do, they proved you wrong. Great work.
Obviously, these are just charges which have to be proved in court. However, the fact that this has been somewhere behind the scenes for months proves why there are few industries less trustworthy than establishment media in the world today — and one of them is establishment governance.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
