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Suspected Knifeman Arrested near British Parliament | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Armed police officers secure the area near the Houses of Parliament in central London. (AFP)


A man wielding a knife was arrested near the British parliament building on Friday, announced London police.

The man was detained after he ran, shouting, towards one of the gates of the Westminster parliament in central London on Friday.

“The man – aged in his 30s – was arrested,” police said.

There were no injuries and the incident is not thought to be terror-related.

The police said however that they “will remain open-minded whether terrorism was a motive.”

They said the man was acting suspiciously at around 11:00 am (1000 GMT) near one of the gates where a militant killed a policeman less than three months ago.

After firing a Taser stun gun, police detained the man.

Armed police had guns trained on the man as he was restrained and bundled into a police van, witnesses at the scene told Reuters.

“You could tell he was suspicious, he was stood there fists clenched. He looked quite an angry geezer,” a witness, Bradley Allen, 19, told Reuters.

“We got seconds down the road and they had him on the floor, pinned. Police around him, telling everyone to move back.”

The incident occurred less than three months since a man drove a car into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, and then stabbed a policeman to death in the grounds of parliament, the first of three deadly attacks in Britain which has put the security services on high alert.

Pictures from the scene showed the man on the ground with an officer pointing a gun at him.

“There were about three or four policeman, one of them shouting at the crowd to get back,” another witness, who declined to give their name, told Reuters.

“The guy was on the ground on his front on the pavement alongside Parliament Square. They had him on the ground and were warning they would taze (stun) him again.”

The gates to parliament were closed and armed police were patrolling as usual inside the perimeter, a Reuters reporter inside the building said.

On March 22, Khalid Masood drove a car into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, killing four people, before he ran into the grounds of parliament and stabbed a police officer to death. He was shot dead at the scene and his attack prompted a review of security around Westminster.

That attack was followed by a suicide bombing in Manchester and a similar deadly attack on London Bridge, thrusting security and policing to the fore of campaigning before last Thursday’s election.