May whisked away after shots were fired
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THE attacker who killed three people near the UK parliament before being shot dead was British-born and was once investigated by MI5 intelligence officers over concerns about violent extremism, Prime Minister Theresa May said yesterday.
Police named him as Khalid Masood, 52, saying he had a string of criminal convictions but none for terrorism-related offenses.
Masood was born in Kent to the southeast of London and had been most recently living in central England, they said.
“Masood was not the subject of any current investigations and there was no prior intelligence about his intent to mount a terrorist attack,” they said in a statement.
“However, he was known to police and has a range of previous convictions for assaults, including GBH (grievous bodily harm), possession of offensive weapons and public order offenses.”
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement issued by its Amaq news agency, but it gave no name or details and it was not clear whether the attacker was directly connected to the jihadist group.
Meanwhile, police arrested eight people at six locations in London and Birmingham in the investigation into Wednesday’s lone-wolf attack that May said was inspired by a warped Islamist ideology.
About 40 people were injured of whom 29 remain in hospital, seven in a critical condition, after the incident which resembled attacks in France and Germany where vehicles were driven into crowds.
The assailant sped across Westminster Bridge in a car, plowing into pedestrians, then ran through the gates of the nearby parliament building and fatally stabbed a policeman before being shot dead.
“What I can confirm is that the man was British-born and that some years ago he was once investigated by MI5 in relation to concerns about violent extremism,” May said in a statement to parliament.
“He was a peripheral figure ... He was not part of the current intelligence picture. There was no prior intelligence of his intent or of the plot,” she said.
The mayhem in London came on the first anniversary of attacks that killed 32 people in Brussels.
The dead were two members of the public, the stabbed policeman and the attacker.
“My thoughts, prayers and deepest sympathy are with all those who have been affected by yesterday’s awful violence,” Queen Elizabeth said in a message.
US tourist Kurt Cochran was named as one of the dead in a Facebook post by family member Shantell Payne.
“With a heavy heart I must pass the sad news of our beautiful brother, father, husband, son and friend Kurt Cochran, he could not overcome the injuries he received in the London terror attacks,” Payne wrote.
Her post said Cochran’s wife, Melissa Payne Cochran, was in hospital but would recover.
Westminster Bridge and an area around parliament were still cordoned off early yesterday while forensic investigators examined the scene where the attacker was shot. The bridge reopened in the afternoon.
It was the deadliest attack in Britain since 2005, when 52 people were killed by suicide bombers on London’s public transport system. Police had given the death toll as five but yesterday revised it to four.
The casualties included 12 Britons, three French children, two Romanians, four South Koreans, one German, one Pole, one Chinese, one American and two Greeks, May said.
“A terrorist came to the place where people of all nationalities and cultures gather to celebrate what it means to be free, and he took out his rage indiscriminately against innocent men, women and children.”
A minute’s silence was held in parliament and in front of police headquarters at 9:33am in honor of the victims — 933 was the shoulder number on the uniform of Keith Palmer, the policeman stabbed to death.
May was in parliament at the time of the attack, a short distance away from the spot where the attacker was shot. She was whisked away as the chaos erupted.
A government minister was widely praised for trying to resuscitate Palmer, walking away from the scene with blood on his hands and face.
A crowdfunding page set up to raise money for Palmer’s family attracted close to 78,000 pounds (US$97,600) in five hours.
Many have been shocked that the attacker was able to cause such mayhem in the heart of the capital equipped with nothing more than a hired car and a knife.
“This kind of attack, this lone-wolf attack, using things from daily life, a vehicle, a knife, are much more difficult to forestall,” Defense Minister Michael Fallon told the BBC.
Three French high-school students aged 15 or 16, who were on a school trip to London with fellow students from Brittany, were among the injured.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault traveled to London to show solidarity and met some of the other students who were on the school trip and their families at a hotel near the hospital where the injured were being treated. He told reporters the lives of the three youngsters were not in danger. Ayrault later attended the session in parliament where May spoke. France has been hit by repeated deadly Islamist attacks over the past two years.
May said the fact that normal life was going on across Britain was the greatest response to the attack. “It is in these actions — millions of acts of normality — that we find the best response to terrorism, a response that denies our enemies their victory,” she said.
Faith leaders from the Muslim, Hindu, Christian and Sikh communities met officers from London’s Metropolitan Police yesterday as authorities vowed to prevent any surge in hate crimes in the wake of the attack.
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