Obama condemns ‘heinous murder’ of British lawmaker

An image and floral tributes for Jo Cox, lay on Parliament Square, outside the House of Parliament in London, Friday, June 17, 2016, after the 41-year-old British Member of Parliament was fatally injured Thursday in northern England. The mother of two young children was shot to death Thursday afternoon in her constituency near Leeds. A 52-year-old man has been arrested but has not been charged. He has been named locally as Tommy Mair. AP Photo

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama condemned Friday the “heinous” murder of Jo Cox, as he offered condolences to the British lawmaker’s widower and praised her “selfless service.”

Obama called Brendan Cox while traveling on the Air Force One presidential plane, a day after the MP was “brutally murdered,” the White House said.

Jo Cox was shot and killed in a ferocious attack in the northern English village of Birstall. Police are investigating the 52-year-old suspected attacker’s mental health and far-right links.

READ: British lawmaker killed in shock attack before EU vote | Suspect charged with murdering British lawmaker–police

The US-based Southern Poverty Law Center said suspect Thomas Mair supported National Alliance, once the primary neo-Nazi organization in the United States.

It said Mair had bought reading material from the National Alliance, which advocated the creation of an all-white homeland and the eradication of Jewish people.

“President Obama offered his sincere condolences on behalf of the American people to Mr. Cox and his two young children, as well as to her friends, colleagues and constituents,” the White House statement said.

“The president noted that the world is a better place because of her selfless service to others, and that there can be no justification for this heinous crime, which robbed a family, a community and a nation of a dedicated wife, mother and public servant.”

Cox, a 41-year-old former aid worker who was campaigning for Britain to stay in the European Union and also spoke out for Syrian refugees, was killed just a few miles (kilometers) from where she was born.

She was the first British MP to be murdered since Ian Gow was killed by Irish Republican Army paramilitaries in a car bomb in 1990.