A British Conservative MP, David Amess, died on Friday after being stabbed "multiple times" during an event in his constituency in south-east England, shocking a country still scarred by the 2016 assassination of Labor MP Jo Cox.
Essex County Police did not mention Amess’s name, but confirmed that "a man was arrested on a murder suspect after a man was stabbed in Leigh-on-Sea". East "later died", he specified.
British media identified the victim, stabbed "multiple times"Like the 69-year-old politician, a member of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s party, who received his constituents at a church in his constituency in Leigh-on-Sea.
The attacker’s motive was unknown at the moment.
Paul Gardiner, a 41-year-old barber, whose establishment is about 250 meters from the scene of the attack, explained the police deployment to AFP.
"There are a couple of helicopters flying over the place and there was an ambulance", he recounted. "I was driving to work and parked around 12:30, there were a lot of police cars driving there"added.
Another witness, Ashley Curtis, a 49-year-old man who lives 200 meters from the church, said that two hours later the road was still blocked with police cars and an ambulance.
"No one could think that something like this would happen around here"he told AFP. "David Amess is a good guy. I have known and had dealings with him in the past", he explained, considering that the attacker had to "hold a grudge against him to enter the Methodist church while he was welcoming people and do that to him".
"Attack on democracy itself"
The political reactions were immediate, in a country marked by the murder in the street in 2016 of the Europhile deputy Jo Cox, a week before the Brexit referendum, at the hands of a neo-Nazi sympathizer.
"Horrible and deeply shocking news"Labor opposition leader Keir Starmer tweeted.
Johnson and his government have not reacted yet, but the prime minister’s wife, former head of communication for the Conservative Party, regretted this. "absolutely devastating news".
Amess "he was immensely kind and good. A great lover of animals and a true gentleman. This is completely unfair. My thoughts are with his wife and children"added.
"Alarming and worrying news"former British Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron tweeted.
"Attacking our elected representatives is an attack on democracy itself. There is no excuse or justification. It’s the most cowardly thing there can be", lashed out Brendan Cox, Cox’s widower, murdered when she was 41 years old.
The attack in 2016 on that Labor MP, a staunch defender of British membership of the European Union and the cause of refugees, shocked the United Kingdom, in a context of strong tension over the campaign for that consultation that divided the country.
She was the first female parliamentarian assassinated in the country and the first assassinated MP since Ian Gow, a victim of the IRA in 1990.
In 2010, Labor MP Stephen Timms was stabbed by a woman after voting for British intervention in the Iraq war.
And ten years earlier, Liberal Democrat MP’s aide Nigel Jones was killed during a saber attack at a meeting with local voters aimed at the legislator.
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