Don’t say my girl was murdered by jihadis!
UK mum blasts Trump for linking death to terrorism
THE mother of a murdered British backpacker has accused the White House of peddling ‘fake news’ by claiming her death was a terror attack.
Donald Trump’s administration included the killing of Mia AyliffeChung, who was stabbed to death in Australia last year, on a controversial list of 78 Islamic terror attacks it claimed the media had downplayed.
Although the 21-year-old’s alleged killer was a French Muslim, Smail Ayad, police have ruled out a terrorism link.
Fellow British backpacker Tom Jackson, 30, was also killed as he tried to protect Miss Ayliffe - Chung. Her mother Rosie Ayliffe,
‘Putting out fake news’
53, yesterday accused President Trump in an open letter of putting out ‘fake news’. She said her daughter’s death was being misused to further the US leader’s ‘insane persecution of innocent people’.
She added: ‘I want to discount this myth of a connection between my daughter’s death and Islamic fundamentalism.’
Dismissing Ayad’s reported words during the attack, she said: ‘Any fool can shout Allahu Akbar as they commit a crime.’
She added that both the Australian police and French anti-terrorism detectives had discounted a link to Islamic extremism in the early stages of the inquiry. Miss Ayliffe- Chung, from Wirksworth, Derbyshire, died in August after being stabbed in front of dozens of others at a Queensland hostel.
She reportedly met Ayad when they were working on a farm. Police are investigating the possibility that he became obsessed with her. Her death was included in a list of ‘terror attacks’ since 2014 which Mr Trump claimed ‘did not receive adequate attention from Western media sources’.
This list features such well-publicised atrocities as the mass shooting in San Bernardino, California – which is misspelled as San Bernadino – and the Paris terror attacks. The lorry attacks in Nice and Berlin and the Pulse nightclub shooting in orlando, Florida, are also included.
Government lawyers argued before appeal court judges yesterday in a bid to lift a block on Mr Trump’s ban on those from seven mainly Muslim countries travelling to the US. The Justice Department argued the ban was vital to ensure the country’s safety. Representatives for the states of Washington and Minnesota have countered that Mr Trump’s executive order – which also suspended the refugee admissions system – may be both unconstitutional and illegal.
Mr Trump defended his policies on Twitter, saying: ‘ The threat from radical Islamic terrorism is very real, just look at what is happening in Europe and the Middle East. Courts must act fast!’