Fatal stabbing of UK MP declared terrorist incident

The fatal stabbing of British MP David Amess was a terrorist incident, police said Saturday, at they investigated the second killing of a UK politician while meeting voters since 2016.

The Metropolitan Police said its preliminary findings had revealed "a potential motivation linked to Islamist extremism".

Amess, a 69-year-old pro-Brexit Conservative lawmaker, was stabbed to death inside a church on Friday while holding a fortnightly consultation with his constituents in the small town of Leigh-on-Sea, in Essex, east of London.

Police arrested a 25-year-old man at the scene on suspicion of murder and recovered a knife.

Essex police said officers had responded "within minutes" to reports of the stabbing shortly after 12:05 pm (1105 GMT) and arrived to find Amess had "suffered multiple injuries".

"This was a difficult incident, but our officers and paramedics from the East of England Ambulance Service worked extremely hard to save Sir David," Harrington said.

"Tragically he died at the scene."