‘MP KILLER'S PHONE CALL KEY TO PROBE'

CONVERSATION COULD PROVIDE CLUE TO INSPIRATION FOR ATTACK AT SURGERY

- Martin Bentham and John Dunne

COUNTER-TERRORISM police were today focusing on a phone call made by suspect Ali Harbi Ali moments after the fatal stabbing of Tory MP Sir David Amess.

Witnesses saw 25-year-old Ali calmly using his mobile before officers arrived to arrest him as the veteran Conservative backbencher lay stricken from his wounds on Friday outside Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex.

Sources today said there was no indication so far that the phone call was to a “controller” or that any other person had directed the attack and that detectives still believed that Sir David’s killer had acted alone, rather than as part of a plot.

But they added that the call made by Ali, the son of a former Somali government official, was “relevant” to the investigation into the killing and could establish what triggered it.

Other crucial evidence is expected to be uncovered from a trawl of phones and computers used by Ali, who was brought up in Croydon.

Any link to his Somali heritage is currently thought to be unlikely, while reports suggesting that Sir David was targeted because of his links to Qatar were also being downplayed. Earlier today:

Justice Secretary Dominic Raab said British intelligence agencies were having to adapt to the threat from “bedroom radicals” who may have turned to terrorism during Covid-19 lockdowns, stressing that MI5 and police were monitoring them “with maximum energy and vigour”.