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Second suspect charged with murder in UK soldier’s slaying

Posted at 10:43 PM, Jun 01, 2013
and last updated 2013-06-02 06:41:53-04

By Pierre Meilhan and Jason Hanna

(CNN) – A second suspect in the killing of British soldier Lee Rigby was charged Saturday with murder, London’s Metropolitan Police said.

Michael Adebolajo, 28, also was charged with attempted murder of two police officers and possession of a firearm, police said.

Police said Rigby was killed in a daylight attack a couple of hundred yards away from the Royal Artillery Barracks in the southeast London district of Woolwich on May 22.

Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, 22, were hospitalized after the attack. Adebolajo was released from the hospital into police custody on Friday. Adebowale was charged with murder after he was released from the hospital Tuesday.

Adebolajo is scheduled to appear in Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Monday, police said.

The killing has sparked an intense investigation by police. They announced two other arrests in the case Friday, of men seized on suspicion of supplying illegal firearms. Authorities also moved a man arrested on the suspicion of killing Rigby from a hospital to a police station.

The charges against Adebolajo follow news of an inquest into Rigby’s death. The inquest opened Friday at Southwark Coroner’s Court and was quickly adjourned.

Detective Chief Inspector Grant Mallon, the senior investigating officer into the death, said two men were incapacitated and detained at the scene of Rigby’s death.

In all, 12 people have been arrested, including Adebolajo and Adebowale, in connection with the killing.

• Two men, ages 42 and 46, have been taken to a south London police station. One was arrested Friday in north London and the other in east London on suspicion of supplying illegal firearms.

• Six others have been freed on bail, the most recent a 50-year-old man arrested Monday night on suspicion of conspiracy to murder.

• Two were released without charges.

Separately, a man who was arrested after he spoke in an interview about Adebolajo on BBC’s “Newsnight” has been charged with two counts of dissemination of terrorist publications and one count of encouragement of terrorism. He is Ibrahim Abdullah-Hassan, also known as Abu Nusaybah. The charges are not connected to the Rigby murder investigation, police said.

CNN’s Chelsea J. Carter contributed to this report