The man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare’s CEO has been charged with murder as an act of terrorism, prosecutors said on Tuesday as they worked to bring him to a New York court from a Pennsylvania jail.
Luigi Mangione already was charged with murder in the December 4 killing of Brian Thompson, but the terror allegation is new.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said Thompson’s death on a midtown Manhattan street “was a killing that was intended to evoke terror. And we’ve seen that reaction”.
Mangione’s New York lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, declined to comment.
Thompson, 50, was shot while walking to a hotel where Minnesota-based UnitedHealthcare – the United States’ biggest medical insurer – was holding an investor conference.
The killing kindled a fiery outpouring of resentment toward US health insurance companies, as Americans swapped stories online and elsewhere of being denied coverage, left in limbo as doctors and insurers disagreed, and stuck with sizeable bills.
