Britain says stabbing 'atrocity' in town park was terrorism

By Peter Nicholls

 

A police officer stands behind a barrier near the scene of multiple stabbings in Reading, Britain, June 21, 2020. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls

 

READING, England (Reuters) - A stabbing rampage in the southern English town of Reading in which three people were killed and others wounded was an act of terrorism, police said on Sunday, calling the attack in a sunny park an atrocity.

 

Detectives said a man had run into a park in Reading, about 40 miles (65 km) west of London where locals had been enjoying the evening sun on Saturday, and attacked people with a knife before being detained by unarmed officers.

 

Police said an unnamed 25-year-old man had been arrested on suspicion of murder and remained in police custody.

 

A Western security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that the arrested man was a Libyan called Khairi Saadallah.

 

Initially police and the government had said the attack did not appear to be terrorism. But Britain's most senior counter-terrorism police officer, Neil Basu, said officers had worked through the night and had now declared it to be a terrorist incident.

 

"This was an atrocity," Basu said. "From our enquiries undertaken so far, officers have found nothing to suggest that there were any other people involved in the attack, and presently, we are not looking for anyone else in relation to this incident."

 

While the motivation for the attack was far from certain, he said there was no intelligence that crowded places were at risk.

 

The victims have not yet been formally identified but a school in a nearby town said one of its teachers, James Furlong, had been killed.

 

The security source said Saadallah had come across the radar of Britain's domestic security agency MI5 last year over intelligence he had aspirations to travel for extremist purposes, although his plans came to nothing.

 

He never met the criteria for a full investigation, the source said.

 

Prime Minister Boris Johnson held a meeting on Sunday with security officials, senior ministers and police to be updated about the investigation.

He said he was "appalled and sickened" by the attack and said Britain would change the law if needed to prevent any future incidents.

 

British police say a stabbing attack that left three people dead has been declared a 'terrorist incident', as Prime Minister Boris Johnson said changes would be made to the law if necessary. David Doyle reports.

 

"If there are lessons we need to learn ... we will learn those lessons and we will not hesitate to take action if necessary," he said.

 

A witness said the attack began in Reading's Forbury Gardens when a man suddenly shouted unintelligibly and then veered toward a group of about eight to 10 friends and began stabbing them.

 

"He darted round anti-clockwise the circle, got one, went to another, stabbed the next one, went to another, stabbed the next one," Lawrence Wort, 20, told BBC TV. "He stood up and I saw a massive knife in his hand, probably at least 5 inches (13 cm) minimum."

 

The attack took place after a Black Lives Matter rally by anti-racism protesters in the park which concluded three hours earlier but Basu said the two incidents were not related.

 

Current coronavirus restrictions mean venues like pubs are closed, so many people in Britain gather in parks in the evenings to meet friends.

 

PAST STABBING ATTACKS

The nature of the attack was reminiscent of a number of recent incidents in Britain that authorities considered to be terrorism.

 

In February, police shot dead a man, previously jailed for promoting violent Islamist material, who had stabbed two people on a busy street in south London. Last November another man who had been jailed for terrorism offences stabbed two people to death on London Bridge before he too was shot dead by police.

 

Britain also suffered four attacks in 2017, the most deadly of them a suicide bombing at the end of a concert by U.S. singer Ariana Grande in Manchester, northern England.

 

(Reporting by Michael Holden and Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by David Goodman, Frances Kerry and Nick Macfie)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-06-22

 

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Asylum seeking scumbag!

"If there are lessons we need to learn ... we will learn those lessons and we will not hesitate to take action if necessary," he said.

 

Tell me Boris, how many terrible events need to take place before you finally understand the lesson?  IMHO, one of the biggest mistakes that is made in the UK, is that so-called Human Rights are upheld.  Britain sticks to the letter of the Law, and is metaphorically 'shafted' as a result by economic migrants, muslim extremists, corrupt, third-world (and first-world EU) governments misusing aid monies etc.  

just off the boat from France

1 hour ago, simon43 said:

IMHO, one of the biggest mistakes that is made in the UK, is that so-called Human Rights are upheld.  Britain sticks to the letter of the Law

EU rules - while they openly facilitate the transfer of the scum they don't want from France 

 

Time for the UK to get a backbone and put an end to this EU facilitated terrorist invasion of the UK

25 minutes ago, smedly said:

just off the boat from France

reports are claiming the accused has been in the UK for at least two years. Where is the info he just arrived in the UK from France as an asylum seeker?

2 hours ago, webfact said:

stabbing rampage in the southern English town of Reading in which three people were killed and others wounded was an act of terrorism

 

2 hours ago, webfact said:

The attack took place after a Black Lives Matter rally by anti-racism protesters

 

2 hours ago, webfact said:

Britain also suffered four attacks in 2017, the most deadly of them a suicide bombing at the end of a concert by U.S. singer Ariana Grande

 

 

UK have a lot of problems because “race”. 

 

IMO stupid to fight about race. Better if freind together, help together. 

 

RIP

 

5 minutes ago, simple1 said:

reports are claiming the accused has been in the UK for at least two years. Where is the info he just arrived in the UK from France as an asylum seeker?

Imagine?

2 hours ago, simon43 said:

 

 

 

Tell me Boris, how many terrible events need to take place before you finally understand the lesson?  IMHO, one of the biggest mistakes that is made in the UK, is that so-called Human Rights are upheld.  Britain sticks to the letter of the Law, and is metaphorically 'shafted' as a result by economic migrants, muslim extremists, corrupt, third-world (and first-world EU) governments misusing aid monies etc.  

Footballers will be taking the knee for the terrorist at tonight’s game.

Gonna be awkward, minutes applause for NHS or do we bang pans at the door?

                              minutes silence for Reading victims.

                              take the knee for the BLM rioters.

Remembrance Sunday will be interesting this year.

 

 

16 minutes ago, simple1 said:

reports are claiming the accused has been in the UK for at least two years. Where is the info he just arrived in the UK from France as an asylum seeker?

I don't give a ----

 

send them back to where they came from

34 minutes ago, simple1 said:

reports are claiming the accused has been in the UK for at least two years. Where is the info he just arrived in the UK from France as an asylum seeker?

Yes its not there,is it? nor is the fact he was entitled to enter the UK either.

 

 Best thing for these boat arrival scumbags,  met at dockside,..into prison van,...onto ferry,..released back in France          Unable to deport   Libya considered a failed state

3 hours ago, webfact said:

Lawrence Wort, 20, told BBC TV. "He stood up and I saw a massive knife in his hand, probably at least 5 inches (13 cm) minimum."

RIP to the victims.

This guy however is obviously too young to have seen the Crocodile Dundee films......

Yes , Islamic terrorism as plenty of medias denied to tell !!!

 

We're any black lives lost in this tragic incident?  Just want to know if I should mourn or smash up some shops and loot a TV.

Foreign nationals that commit such atrocities, once they have been through the legal process should be repatriated to their own country & made to serve their sentence out there. Why should the British tax payer shoulder the financial burden for the next 25 yrs. This should be mandatory, i'm sure a sentence in a Libyan jail would be harder to serve than a British one.

  Many years ago i was working at the Harmondsworth Detention Centre a place where foreign nationals are sent prior to deportation. Whilst there a husband murdered his wife & daughter, in order for him to be jailed in the UK rather than go back to his own country. When people commit such atrocities just to make life easier for themselves, surely they must forfeit certain human rights.

2 hours ago, smedly said:

just off the boat from France

No...he's been there 8 years, arrested and convicted 5 times and released from prison only 2 weeks ago...

2 hours ago, simple1 said:

reports are claiming the accused has been in the UK for at least two years. Where is the info he just arrived in the UK from France as an asylum seeker?

Doesn't matter when he arrived, UK gave him 'sanctuary.'  Send the terrorist scum back to where he came from.

1 hour ago, sungod said:

Doesn't matter when he arrived, UK gave him 'sanctuary.' 

 

Send the terrorist scum back to where he came from.

Disagree.

 

Why? If found guilty life in prison with no parole.

4 hours ago, smedly said:

I don't give a ----

 

send them back to where they came from

I do. truth is important. if convicted the killer should spend life in prison for the term of his life in the UK, not sent back to a country where there is no assurance he will have to face the consequences of his actions.

5 minutes ago, simple1 said:

I do. truth is important. if convicted the killer should spend life in prison for the term of his life in the UK, not sent back to a country where there is no assurance he will have to face the consequences of his actions.

I think that the UK should have a referendum on this.

If Boris is serious about beating Islamic terrorism, there's action he can take immediately to reduce the incidence. 

 

Simply tell Priti Patel to stop powdering her nose and do something about the ongoing small-boat armada of illegal immigrants  entering Britain via southern ports, with the egregious collaboration of of the French.

 

Thanks to much-maligned Brexit hero Nigel Farage doing the lazy mass media's job for them, this backdoor invasion, taking advantage of preoccupation with the pandemic, has been exposed but not ended, with over 680 illicit landings last month.

 

In addition to plugging this gap, we need to tighten checks on the 2,000-plus suspected jihadi "sleepers" security services say are already living in the UK, and deport any who pose a real threat.

 

As a supposedly Christian country, we might even consider being less welcoming to Islamic migrants and more so towards Christians refugees fleeing Muslim persecution across Africa and the Middle East.

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/26/kayaker-among-new-wave-migrants-crossing-channel-french-navy/

 

 

 

 

"Islam is peace",

TV/medias say that every days...

 

Personally, I tire of 'learning lessons'

 

At what point do you actually do something?

17 minutes ago, simple1 said:

I do. truth is important. if convicted the killer should spend life in prison for the term of his life in the UK, not sent back to a country where there is no assurance he will have to face the consequences of his actions.

The last thing the UK needs is more nutters like this in the prison system. 

40 minutes ago, simple1 said:

Disagree.

 

Why? If found guilty life in prison with no parole.

Why, he has just committed a terrorist offense against the very country that showed him sympathy and allowed him in. Why should tax payers money be used in keeping him in jail. Should be a law that deports these scum back to the country they fled from.

12 minutes ago, nauseus said:

The last thing the UK needs is more nutters like this in the prison system. 

Agree. Unfortunately currently there doesn't appear to be an alternative solution available to HMG.

35 minutes ago, Traubert said:

Personally, I tire of 'learning lessons'

 

At what point do you actually do something?

I agree. The statement is about as sincere/useful as "are thoughts are with ....".

15 minutes ago, simple1 said:

Agree. Unfortunately currently there doesn't appear to be an alternative solution available to HMG.

That's why the law and process needs to change.

6 hours ago, smedly said:

EU rules - while they openly facilitate the transfer of the scum they don't want from France 

 

Time for the UK to get a backbone and put an end to this EU facilitated terrorist invasion of the UK

They could start by closing the Mosque of the person responsible, then warning that any mosque which has members committing terrorism will be automatically shut down.

4 hours ago, baansgr said:

No...he's been there 8 years, arrested and convicted 5 times and released from prison only 2 weeks ago...

and he is still allowed to stay in the country, ridiculous.