Overview
- Alina Burns pleaded guilty to attempted murder after swinging an axe at Iranian Kurd Mohammed Mahmoodi outside a Bedminster barber shop in August last year.
- Prosecutors withdrew a separate charge that she prepared terrorist acts, and the court recorded a not guilty verdict on that count.
- The judge will rule soon on whether the crime had a terrorism element that could increase the sentence, with sentencing set for May 15.
- Police evidence detailed online searches about buying and using an axe, an axe bought from a hardware chain, a scalpel and darts carried at arrest, extremist diaries, and an email urging violence against Jews and Muslims.
- Counter-terrorism police took over the investigation, and coverage links Burns to the far-right group Patriotic Alternative while noting other recent teen cases involving neo-Nazi ideology.