U.K. Knife Attacker Who Killed Two Was a Convicted Terrorist
LONDON—The knife-wielding assailant who killed two people—and was then taken down by heroic passersby on London Bridge—was a convicted terrorist who was paroled last year.
Usman Khan, 28, pleaded guilty in 2012 to a plot to bomb the London Stock Exchange, Westminster Abbey, and Big Ben. He was freed in December 2018, on condition he wear a tracking device.
On Friday, he was attending a Cambridge University criminal justice symposium at Fishmongers’ Hall when he reportedly threatened to blow it up and then embarked on a stabbing rampage.
The harrowing incident ended on the same bridge where three terrorists killed eight people in 2017 when Khan—who was wearing a hoax suicide vest—was tackled and disarmed by members of the public as police arrived.
A tour guide told The Telegraph that he was driving when he saw the commotion on the bridge and stopped the car to run over.
“There were about five guys there when we got there,” he said. “I jumped in and kicked him in the head to make him release his knife. A few others did so. He was shouting, ‘Get off me, get off me.’”
He said that when the attacker was rolled over, they saw what appeared to be a bomb vest.
“The police arrived so quickly. They told us ‘get the **** back.’ They had rifles. They put three rounds into him,” he said.
Cellphone footage of the incident showed armed police officers pulling people off the attacker, who was struggling to break free. One officer from the City of London police then shot the man at the northern end of the bridge. He died at the scene.
Neil Basu, head of counterterrorism at Scotland Yard, said the man was wearing a hoax suicide vest. “It has been declared a terrorist incident,” he said.
Basu indicated that the police had been warned that the man may have been wearing an improvised explosive device before they got to the bridge. Footage captured by various people in the vicinity, shows the firearms officer shooting the attacker as soon as he had a clear shot.
A member of the public who had carried the knife out of reach of the attacker could be seen motioning for other people walking across the bridge to stay clear of the melee, before the officer fired the fatal shot.