Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

Scotland Yard Looks into London Attacker Motives | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
Select Page
Media ID: 55370119
Caption:

Faith leaders including Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the chief rabbi and the chief imam of London’s central mosque gathered to remember the victims together © AFP / CHRIS J RATCLIFFE


London – London Metropolitan police said on Saturday that one man, a 58-year-old arrested in Birmingham the morning after Wednesday’s terror attack, was still being held while further enquiries were being carried out.

A total of 11 people were originally arrested in the wake of the attack, their ages ranging from 21 to 58.

52-year-old British man, Khalid Masood, was named by London Police as the perpetrator.

While the attacker was not the subject of any current investigations and had not been convicted for any terrorism offenses, police and security services knew him with previous convictions for several crimes.

According to The Sun tabloid, Masood married a Muslim woman in 2004 and moved the following year to Saudi Arabia to teach English, returning in 2009.

A Saudi embassy statement released late on Friday said Khalid Masood taught English in Saudi Arabia from November 2005 to November 2006 and again from April 2008 to April 2009.

The Saudi embassy said he was not tracked by the country’s security services and did not have a criminal record there.

At least 50 people from 12 different countries were injured when Masood rammed his rented car into crowds of people walking along Westminster Bridge, before crashing the vehicle into the fence outside the UK Parliament.

Three people on the bridge died after being hit by the speeding car, then the attacker fatally stabbed a police officer just inside the gates of Parliament before being shot dead.

The death toll rose late Thursday when 75-year-old man succumbed to his injuries.