Case against Ali Harbi Ali 'utterly overwhelming' in Sir David Amess murder trial, jury told

The case against the man accused of murdering Sir David Amess is “utterly overwhelming”, jurors have been told.

Ali Harbi Ali, 26, from Kentish Town, is on trial at the Old Bailey for stabbing the veteran Conservative MP to death during a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex last October.

Prosecutor Tom Little QC said the evidence against Ali was “utterly overwhelming and compelling” as he made his closing speech on Monday.

He told jurors: “I suggest you will never forget the body-worn footage of the defendant still holding the bloody knife he had had for five years for just such an attack in that church on Sir David Amess.”

He reminded the jury of Ali’s “cool, calm and collected” behaviour upon his arrest.

In his evidence to the court, Ali was “smiling, almost enjoying reliving and explaining what he intended to do and what he had done, revelling, you may think, in his terrorist acts”, Mr Little asserted.

The prosecutor told jurors: “In Ali Harbi Ali world he has done nothing wrong.

“But you live in the real world, and in the real world you cannot take the law into your hands, hence he has no defence to the charge of murder.”

Mr Little called on the jury to consider the evidence by applying “cool logic and common sense”.

Tracy Ayling QC, defending, told jurors that the defendant’s case was that he acted to “save lives” in Syria.

She said: “His purpose was, as he puts it now, to save lives at the expense of Sir David’s but also his own.”

Ali has denied murder and preparing acts of terrorism.