What Axel Rudakubana searched for online

As Axel Rudakubana prepares to face justice for his shocking murders last year, Keir Starmer has warned that Britain must now grapple with how to address a new threat.

Rudakubana, 18, is due to be sentenced tomorrow for the murder of Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine; Bebe King, six; and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, at a Taylor-Swift theme dance class on 29 July.

Despite the extreme nature of Rudakubana's actions, authorities have so far resisted calls to label it terrorism, pointing to the apparent lack of motive or ideology underpinning his violent rampage.

Instead, Starmer has promised to act to tackle a 'tidal wave' of online content which risks inspiring more atrocities.

At the same time, legal restrictions on the reporting of trials and criminal proceedings could also be loosened in an attempt to avoid a repeat of the summer riots sparked by misinformation which spread in the wake of the slayings.

'Loners, misfits, young men'

In recent days, Starmer has promised a slew of reforms in an attempt to prevent future attacks like Southport.

Some measures have already been touted, such as a vow to end "shockingly easy" access to knives online with new age and identity verification measures.

Ministers have also announced a public inquiry into the killings and the failures which left the 18-year-old free to carry out his attack.

But the prime minister has also hinted at more far-reaching reforms to come, warning "terrorism has changed" and the UK must adapt to a new threat coming from self-radicalised individuals, rather than shadowy groups running complex conspiracies.

“In the past, the predominant threat was highly organised groups with clear political intent, groups like al-Qaeda," he said.

"That threat, of course, remains. But now alongside that, we also see acts of extreme violence perpetrated by loners, misfits, young men in their bedroom accessing all manner of material online, desperate for notoriety. Sometimes inspired by traditional terrorist groups, but fixated by that extreme violence seemingly for its own sake.”

What did Rudakubana search online?

Rudakubana was referred to the government’s Prevent counter-terrorism initiative three times - the first time aged just 13 - before carrying out the attack in Southport.

Despite this, he was not considered to pose a serious threat supporting terrorism or carrying out acts of violence in support of any cause. However, he was found to have been “obsessed with genocides”, in the words of one official and appeared to have a fascination with extreme violence.

Documents about Nazi Germany, the Rwandan genocide and car bombs were found on devices belonging to the teenager.

Minutes before he left home to travel to the dance class, it is understood the 18-year-old searched social media site X for the Mar Mari Emmanuel stabbing, which led to a video of the stabbing of Bishop Emmanuel and five others during a sermon at church in Sydney in April 2024.

Among the items found on two tablet computers belonging to him were documents including A Concise History Of Nazi Germany and The Myth Of The Remote Controlled Car Bomb, the PA news agency understands.

Rudakubana, whose parents moved to the UK from Rwanda, also had documents called Rwanda’s Hutu Extremist Insurgency – An Eye Witness Perspective and Death And Survival During The 1994 Genocide In Rwanda.

He also possessed an al-Qaida handbook - Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants: The al-Qaida Training Manual. which prompted the charge of possessing information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.

He also reportedly spent hours watching graphic videos of murders and searched for material related to school massacres and terrorist attacks in London.

However, despite the breadth of extreme content he was accessing online, as it did not conform to a conventional terrorist ideology, it is feared he may have fallen into a grey area not covered by the existing Prevent guidelines.

‘Salad bar terrorism’

Despite the range of content Rudakubana accessed online, senior officers declined to define the murders as acts of terrorism.

Under UK law, an ideology is critical in deciding whether a crime counts as terrorism, with legislation insisting acts must “be for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause” to pass the threshold.

But some have suggested this is now in need of an overhaul to catch up with new realities, particularly the so-called ‘salad bar terrorism’ the internet has created.

“We've now had a rise in lone actor attacks or foiled attacks and radicalisation cases in the prevent program,” Dr Julia Ebner, who runs the Violent Extremism Lab at Oxford University, told BBC Radio 4’s Today Show on Wednesday.

“That means individuals who are no longer connected to traditional, traditional violent extremist groups are now increasingly radicalising within rather loose online networks.

“The second dynamic is that we're seeing a rise in fluid ideologies, or what the security services call mixed, unstable and unclear.

“The Americans have a slightly catchier term for that, they call it 'salad bar' extremism because increasingly extremists have been picking their own ingredients of their extremism salad.

“They might contain different ideological elements from, for example, misogyny and Satanism - we've seen really weird combinations.”

Dr Ebner also rejected Keir Starmer’s description of the threat from “loners, misfits, young men in their bedroom … desperate for notoriety”.

Instead, she warned that while such people may be “socially isolated in their offline lives”, they were also often subject to “extremely powerful group dynamics” in their online activities.

However, speaking to LBC, former national counter-terrorism chief Neil Basu said politicians should be “wary” of major changes to the current terror definitions, in case it leads to more seeking a “day of infamy”.