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Suspect in British Lawmaker’s Killing Is Said to Have Neo-Nazi Ties Thomas Mair, Suspect in Jo Cox Killing, Had History of Neo-Nazi Ties and Mental Illness
(about 5 hours later)
BIRSTALL, England — The suspect in the killing of a member of Parliament on a street in northern England on Thursday has a history of ties with a neo-Nazi organization in the United States, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, and may have suffered from mental illness, according to an account he gave a local newspaper in 2010. BIRSTALL, England — Police officials investigating the killing of a member of Parliament in northern England said Friday that they were focused on the murder suspect’s ties to far-right extremist movements and his history of mental illness as they sought a motive for an act of violence that left Britain stunned and rippled through its politics.
Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain and Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, traveled on Friday to Birstall, the town where the lawmaker, Jo Cox, 41, was killed. They lay flowers and stood in silence around a local landmark, a statue of Joseph Priestley, an 18th-century chemist, which has been turned into a makeshift memorial for Ms. Cox. The killing on Thursday of the lawmaker, Jo Cox, 41, a member of the opposition Labour Party, was the first of a sitting member of Parliament since 1990, and came a week before Britain votes on whether to leave the European Union. Her death brought Prime Minister David Cameron, a Conservative, and the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, together to the site of the killing, in the town of Birstall, to honor her.
Flags were flown at half-staff at the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, 10 Downing Street and other public buildings. The suspect, Thomas Mair, 52, who lives in Birstall, was arrested shortly after the attack.
The killing — and the suspect’s reported ties to far-right organizations — introduced a volatile element into the political debate in Britain a week before a referendum on whether the country should leave the European Union. Parliament, which has been in recess in the prelude to the referendum, will be called back on Monday for tributes to Ms. Cox. In a statement on Friday, the West Yorkshire Police said examining Mr. Mair’s ties to “right wing extremism” was a “priority line of enquiry” in the effort to establish a motive. The police said his mental illness, which was not specified, was also “a clear line of enquiry.”
Both sides in that debate have suspended campaigning out of respect for Ms. Cox. Issues of immigration and national identity have been central to the sometimes bitter clashes over membership in the bloc, and they have driven the campaign at times toward what critics say is racism and xenophobia. Ms. Cox was shot and stabbed early Thursday afternoon after getting out of her car outside the public library in Birstall, where she was scheduled to hold a meeting with constituents, the police said in their most detailed description of the attack. A 77-year-old man who tried to help was also injured. He has not been publicly identified and was said by the police to be in stable condition.
Mr. Cameron urged Britons to stamp out hatred and intolerance, saying, “We should value, and see as precious, the democracy that we have on these islands, where 65 million of us live together, work together and get on together.” “This appears to be an isolated but targeted attack upon Jo,” Dee Collins, the temporary chief constable, said. She said there was “no indication at this stage that anyone else was involved in the attack.”
Mr. Corbyn called Ms. Cox’s killing “an attack on democracy.” The police believe Mr. Mair was angry about political issues and had targeted Ms. Cox, who supported keeping Britain in the European Union, according to a person who has been briefed on the investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity because no one has been authorized to publicly discuss the inquiry.
The shooting stunned Britain, where handguns are strictly regulated and where no sitting member of Parliament had been killed since 1990. Statements condemning the attack and praising Ms. Cox poured in from figures like Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president of the United States; Prime Minister Enda Kenny of Ireland; and President François Hollande of France. Investigators were looking into witness accounts that Mr. Mair used the phrase “Britain first” in speaking to Ms. Cox before shooting her, though the accounts suggested that he used the words in the context of a longer statement and not to voice support for the far-right group known as Britain First.
Many questions remained unanswered on Friday, including about the suspect’s motives and state of mind, and whether he intended to target Ms. Cox, who had reported concerns about online threats and harassment. Issues of immigration and national identity have been central to the occasionally bitter clashes over the referendum on membership in the European Union, and have resulted in a tone that critics say verges on racism and xenophobia.
The police have revealed very few details about the suspect beyond his age, 52. Neighbors in the town of Birstall, where the suspect lived and where Ms. Cox was shot, identified him as Thomas Mair. Both sides in the debate suspended campaigning on Thursday out of respect for Ms. Cox, though Vote Leave, which supports departure from the 28-nation bloc, said on Friday that it would resume campaigning over the weekend.
On Thursday night, the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is based in Alabama and tracks extremist groups, released receipts showing that Mr. Mair had paid $620 for materials from National Vanguard Books, the publishing imprint of a neo-Nazi organization called the National Alliance. In 1999, he purchased materials that included publications on how to make a gun and improvised explosives. Speaking in Birstall, Mr. Cameron said he first met Ms. Cox in 2006 in the Darfur region of Sudan; at the time, she worked for the humanitarian organization Oxfam. “Parliament has lost one of its most passionate and brilliant campaigners,” he said.
The alliance, once a leading neo-Nazi group in the United States, fell into a long decline after the death in 2002 of its leader, William Luther Pierce, whose writings were a source of motivation for Timothy J. McVeigh, who killed 168 people in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. The law center now considers the National Alliance to be “almost irrelevant.” Mr. Corbyn called Ms. Cox’s killing “an attack on democracy,” blaming “the well of hatred” for the killing.
In Birstall, about six miles southwest of the city of Leeds, Hichem Ben Abdallah, who runs a cafe near the site of the killing, said that Ms. Cox’s attacker had pulled a gun — “it looked like an old sawn-off shotgun, probably an old vintage one” — from a bag. The attacker, he said, “was shaking it very violently,” perhaps because it had jammed.
“Next minute, he fired a shot,” Mr. Ben Abdallah said. He ran into the cafe, he said, and then heard another shot a few seconds later. After the firing stopped, he raced outside.
“It never crosses your mind that you are going to see your M.P. on the floor,” he said. “She had her head back, bleeding, and her knees up, blood down her legs. Her hair was ruffed up from when he was pulling at her hair.”
On Thursday night, the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is based in Alabama, released receipts showing that Mr. Mair had paid $620 for materials from National Vanguard Books, the publishing imprint of a neo-Nazi organization called the National Alliance. In 1999, he bought manuals for making a gun and improvised explosives. The gun used in the shooting was not homemade, according to the person briefed on the investigation, who said that Mr. Mair also had a hunting knife.
The Telegraph, one of Britain’s main newspapers, reported that Mr. Mair’s name was on a decade-old website listing subscribers to the S. A. Patriot, a South African magazine published by a pro-apartheid group, the White Rhino Club. A blog post attributed to the group, dated January 2006, described Mr. Mair as “one of the earliest subscribers and supporters of S. A. Patriot.”The Telegraph, one of Britain’s main newspapers, reported that Mr. Mair’s name was on a decade-old website listing subscribers to the S. A. Patriot, a South African magazine published by a pro-apartheid group, the White Rhino Club. A blog post attributed to the group, dated January 2006, described Mr. Mair as “one of the earliest subscribers and supporters of S. A. Patriot.”
Mr. Mair might also have had a history of mental illness. A local newspaper, The Huddersfield Daily Examiner, quoted Mr. Mair in an article in 2010 that described him as a client of Pathways Day Center, a program for adults with mental health problems, which placed him as a volunteer at Oakwell Hall and Country Park, a local attraction that includes a manor house built in 1583. A local newspaper, The Huddersfield Daily Examiner, quoted Mr. Mair in an article in 2010 that described him as a client of Pathways Day Center, a program for adults with mental health problems, The group placed him as a volunteer at Oakwell Hall and Country Park, a local attraction that includes a manor house built in 1583.
“I can honestly say it has done me more good than all the psychotherapy and medication in the world,” the newspaper quoted Mr. Mair as saying. “Getting out of the house and meeting new people is a good thing, but more important in my view is doing physically demanding and useful labor.”“I can honestly say it has done me more good than all the psychotherapy and medication in the world,” the newspaper quoted Mr. Mair as saying. “Getting out of the house and meeting new people is a good thing, but more important in my view is doing physically demanding and useful labor.”
Officials at the day center and at the park declined to comment. A number of neighbors described Mr. Mair as quiet and reclusive. One of them, Diana Peters, a retired nurse, said she first met Mr. Mair more than 40 years ago. She said that he had told her that he spent most evenings on his computer or watching television, liked to garden and took in stray cats.
A number of neighbors described him as quiet and reclusive. One of them, Diana Peters, said she met Mr. Mair when he was around 8 years old but had never been invited into his home. Ms. Peters said she was “absolutely devastated” to learn of his arrest. “If you had told me he had turned into Father Christmas I would have been more likely to believe it,” she said. She recalled that they “never, ever spoke about politics.”
When she heard of his arrest, she said: “I was devastated. You think you know somebody, but you have no idea at all who’s living next door.” Kathryn Pinnock, a Liberal Democrat councilor from Birstall who was appointed to the House of Lords in 2014, said that she was to have campaigned with Ms. Cox on Thursday afternoon for Britain to remain in the European Union.
Ms. Peters described Mr. Mair as meek and polite, and she said that he had told her that he spent most evenings on his computer or watching television; he also spent time in the garden and cut grass. “He never showed any sign of psychiatric problems,” she said. Ms. Pinnock said that Ms. Cox had mentioned receiving some “very unpleasant” messages via social media. The West Yorkshire Police said Ms. Cox had gotten two threats in the past, “one of a sexual nature,” at her offices in London. The Metropolitan Police, which protects the capital, said Ms. Cox had alerted them in March to “malicious communication” by a man, whom officers detained and released with a warning. That man was not the killer, police said.
Moments after the attack Thursday afternoon, the police tackled and arrested a man on suspicion of having shot the lawmaker. Ms. Cox had just completed a meeting with constituents in the town of Birstall when, according to witnesses, she was shot by a man who confronted her on the street. Another man, 77, who had sought to intervene, was injured. Ms. Cox, who would have turned 42 on Wednesday, was elected to Parliament for the district of Batley and Spen in May 2015. In just over a year, she had already established a strong reputation, speaking on behalf of refugees, children in poverty and children with autism. Hundreds of people packed St. Peter’s Church in Birstall on Thursday night for a memorial service. Ms. Cox’s husband, Brendan Cox, said on Friday that a charitable fund had been set up in her memory.
The police have not disclosed any information about a possible motive for the attack and have not formally identified Mr. Mair as the suspect, though his family and neighbors have confirmed that he is the man in custody.
The West Yorkshire Police said they were not looking for any additional suspects and declined to answer questions from journalists on Friday.
It is not clear what the attacker’s mental state or intentions might have been. The Metropolitan Police, responsible for protecting London, said on Friday that Ms. Cox had alerted the police in March to “malicious communication” by a man. The man was detained and released with a warning, and “that’s not the same man who is currently in custody in West Yorkshire,” the Metropolitan Police said in a statement.
Ms. Cox, a member of the opposition Labour Party who would have turned 42 on Wednesday, was elected to Parliament for the area of Batley and Spen in May 2015. But in just over a year, she had already established a strong reputation. Mr. Cameron and Mr. Corbyn both praised her Thursday night as a rising star in British politics.
Hundreds of people packed St. Peter’s Church in Birstall on Thursday night for a memorial service for Ms. Cox. The town, about six miles southwest of the city of Leeds, has about 16,000 residents.
Kathryn Pinnock, a Liberal Democrat councilor from Birstall who was appointed to the House of Lords in 2014, said in an interview that she was to have campaigned with Ms. Cox on Thursday afternoon for Britain to remain in the European Union.
Ms. Pinnock said that Ms. Cox had mentioned receiving some “very unpleasant” messages via social media.
“There is a lot of what I have described as bile in our public life at the minute,” Ms. Pinnock said. “It has become so personally aggressive, and that is not acceptable. We should be discussing the issues, not the people.”
“It is from that tone that this sort of stuff comes,” Ms. Pinnock said, speaking in the village square in front of floral tributes to Ms. Cox. “It was an attack on our public life. She was murdered for being an M.P.”
She added: “What sort of country have we got when what can happen and that sort of anger can be in people — that they just sort of think that they can go out and murder a person they disagree with?”
The killing has also put a spotlight on the safety of lawmakers, who routinely meet with their constituents at libraries, schools and other public buildings. The press office for the House of Commons said it was “too soon to comment on this tragic incident or any wider implications, but we are advising members if they have any concerns to contact their local police.”