Exclusive:
A Mirror investigation reveals how Al-Qaeda training manual found at address of Axel Rudakubana, the teenager who murdered three girls at Taylor Swift-themed dance class, is freely available online
A Mirror probe today reveals how a vile terror manual discovered at the Southport knife killer’s home is made freely available by web giant Google.
After PM Keir Starmer warned of troubling material online, we found the chilling document can be accessed with just a mouse click. As web tycoons this week lined up to welcome Donald Trump as US president, our investigation lays bare the disturbing content easily accessed on the internet.
It follows Axel Rudakubana, 18, pleading guilty on Monday to murdering three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in the Merseyside town in July. In a Downing Street address today, Starmer told how we now “see acts of extreme violence perpetrated by loners, misfits, young men in their bedroom, accessing all manner of material online, desperate for notoriety”.
Within minutes of the PM’s warning, we found a terror handbook discovered by police at Rudakubana’s home was instantly available via Google. The 2004 document by an ex-CIA staffer features a reproduction of the manual, with a commentary alongside. Though the reproduced “Manual of Terror” excludes specific instructions for producing poisons and toxins, it covers tradecraft, espionage and even assassination.
The Mirror is choosing not to give further details of its troubling contents. Among other charges, Rudakubana pleaded guilty to possessing the PDF file in breach of a terror law. Google, whose chief Sundar Pichai was among tech bosses who took prime spots at Trump’s inauguration, did not provide comment.
Former Head of the National Counter Terrorism Security Office Chris Phillips told the Mirror: “It’s absolutely disgusting that items such as this which should be easy to get rid of are still there on the internet ready to groom individuals. We’ve got to make it harder for our youth and others to get terrorist information. This should be just immediately closed down, it shouldn’t be that difficult to do that. The question is, are these companies doing enough? The answer is no.”
Others at the re-elected US leader’s inauguration included Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and X boss Elon Musk. It emerged this week that despite contact with state agencies including Prevent, authorities failed to stop the Southport attack. Rudakubana took the lives of Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven.
On Monday, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced an inquiry into the case. And, today, she said the Government would “consider the wider challenge of rising youth violence” and that requests would be made to tech firms to remove online material accessed by Rudakubana.
Despite a previous conviction for violence, aged 17 Rudakubana was able to order a kitchen knife from Amazon which he used to murder the girls. Rudakubana, of Banks, Lancashire, will be sentenced on Thursday. But he is not expected to receive a whole life order because he was 17 at the time of the murders.
Rudakubana, born in Cardiff, also admitted the attempted murders of eight other children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, class instructor Leanne Lucas and businessman John Hayes. He pleaded guilty to possessing a knife on the date of the attack, production of a biological toxin, ricin, on or before July 29, and possession of information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing to commit an act of terrorism.
The terrorism offence relates to the PDF file, “Military Studies In The Jihad Against The Tyrants, The Al Qaeda Training Manual”, which he is said to have possessed between August 29 2021 and July 30 2024. The ricin, a deadly poison, and the document were found during searches of the home in Old School Close which he shared with his parents, originally from Rwanda.
Documents about Nazi Germany, the Rwandan genocide and car bombs were found on Rudakubana’s devices during searches of his home by police. The material showed an “obsession with extreme violence” but there was no evidence he subscribed to any political or religious ideology or was “fighting for a cause”, sources said.
In the wake of the Southport attack, unrest erupted across the country – with mosques and hotels used for asylum seekers among locations targeted. Information spread online in the hours after the stabbing claiming the suspect was an asylum seeker who had arrived in the UK on a small boat.
The day after the attack, thousands turned out for a peaceful vigil in Southport. However, later a separate protest outside a mosque in the town became violent – with missiles thrown at police and vans set on fire. Over 1000 arrests linked to disorder across the country have been made since the attack, with hundreds have been charged and jailed.