LONDON — A 25-year-old Libyan asylum-seeker accused of stabbing three men to death with a kitchen knife as they sat in an English city park makes his first court appearance today but doesn’t enter a plea.
Khairi Saadallah faces three counts of murder and three of attempted murder over the June 20 attack in Reading, 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of London.
Friends James Furlong, 36, David Wails, 49, and Joseph Ritchie-Bennett, 39, were enjoying a warm Saturday evening in the town’s Forbury Gardens park when they were stabbed. Each died from a single stab wound. Three other men were injured.
Police have declared the stabbings a terror attack.
Prosecutor Jan Newbold says Saadallah stabbed his victims “without warning or provocation,” while shouting “words to the effect of ‘Allahu akbar'” — the Arabic phrase for God is great.
Saadallah appears by video link, wearing a gray prison-issue tracksuit and a blue face mask. He speaks only to confirm his name, birth date and address and is ordered detained until his next hearing on Wednesday.
— AP
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