Hadi Alodid, 30, of Duncairn Avenue in Belfast, appeared via video link before the city’s Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday morning. He is accused of stabbing Stephen Ogilvie and attempting to kill him. He is also alleged to have threatened to kill an X-ray assistant of the state health service and to have possessed a knife. According to the PA news agency, Alodid made no comment on the charges, which were read to him through an Arabic interpreter. He also declined a public defender.
The court heard that the victim lost his left eye in the attack. The knife attack triggered severe rioting in Belfast, which the leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) described as a racially motivated pogrom. Northern Ireland’s Justice Minister Naomi Long of the Alliance Party said the unrest was fueled by people online who ‘would have struggled to find Belfast on a map’.
Northern Ireland’s Chief Jon Boutcher defended the police’s decision to disclose the suspect’s Sudanese nationality. British politics reacted with sharp criticism: Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned the violence as ‘shocking’. At a Reform UK press conference, a reporter pointed out that former Home Suella Braverman and former Immigration Robert Jenrick, both now working for Reform UK, were responsible for allowing the suspect to stay in Britain. Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice defended both as ‘politicians with conviction and courage’.
EuroPulse reported on June 9, 2026, on the knife attack in Belfast and Prime Minister Starmer’s reaction, calling the act ‘disgusting’: Man seriously injured in Belfast knife attack – Starmer calls it ‘disgusting’.
Source: www.theguardian.com
