By Michael Sercan Daventry
LONDON (AA) – The alleged killer of British opposition lawmaker Jo Cox will not be offering evidence in his defense, his lawyer has told a murder trial.
Thomas Mair, a 53-year-old unemployed gardener who lived in Cox’s electoral district, is accused of her murder.
On June 16, the Labour lawmaker, a mother of two young children, was shot three times and repeatedly stabbed. She succumbed to her injuries in the hospital later that day.
Mair’s lawyer, Simon Russell Flint, said the accused had opted not to speak and his defense team would offer no other evidence, The Guardian reported.
The trial began last week with the prosecution saying Mair had shouted “My name is death to traitors, freedom for Britain” when asked to confirm his name at a court hearing earlier in the year.
Mair also faces three other charges in connection to the armed attack, which occurred on the street as Cox arrived for a meeting with constituents in her Batley & Spen electoral district in the north of England.
He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Jo Cox had been elected in 2015 and was the first British lawmaker to be killed in office in 26 years.
Her death shocked Britain, coming at a time of heightened ethnic and community tensions a week before the country’s EU membership referendum.