Documents about Nazi Germany, the Rwandan genocide and car bombs were found on devices belonging to a teenager with a “sickening” interest in violence who murdered three girls at a Southport holiday club.
When police searched the home of Axel Rudakubana in Banks, Lancashire, after he carried out the attack on July 29, they found knives and poison, as well as images and documents relating to violence, war and genocide on his devices.
Sources said 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”.
Minutes before he left home to travel to the dance class, it is understood the 18-year-old searched social media site X for the Mar Mari Emmanuel stabbing, which led to a video of the stabbing of the Bishop Emmanuel and five others during a sermon at church in Sydney in April 2024.
Among the items found on two tablet computers belonging to Rudakubana were documents including A Concise History Of Nazi Germany and The Myth Of The Remote Controlled Car Bomb, the PA news agency understands
Rudakubana, whose parents moved to the UK from Rwanda, also had documents called Rwanda’s Hutu Extremist Insurgency – An Eye Witness Perspective and Death And Survival During The 1994 Genocide In Rwanda.
Other files included A Place Under Heaven – Amerindian Torture and Cultural Violence; The Mau Mau War: British Counterinsurgency in Colonial Kenya; Clan Cleansing In Somalia, The Ruinous Legacy of 1991; and Examination Of Punishments Dealt To Slave Rebels In Two 18th Century British Plantation Societies.
Also found was a PDF file entitled Military Studies In The Jihad Against The Tyrants, The Al Qaeda Training Manual.
The discovery of the file led to Rudakubana being charged with possession of information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing to commit an act of terrorism, which he admitted on Monday.
Ursula Doyle, deputy chief crown prosecutor, said: “It is clear that this was a young man with a sickening and sustained interest in death and violence.”
Images relating to wars and conflicts including Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and Korea, well as images of knives and machetes, were discovered on the tablets.
Ricin was discovered in a plastic container under Rudakubana’s bed, and a bag which had contained castor seeds, used to make the poison, was found which had been purchased in 2022.
Also found were a machete and a knife identical to the one used in the attack at The Hart Space dance studio in Southport.
The internet browsing history on a laptop found in his home was deleted shortly before Rudakubana left the house, investigations are understood to have revealed.