Van driver yelled: I want to kill Muslims
ONE man is dead and 10 injured after a van mowed down a group of worshippers leaving a London mosque in what appears to be the fourth terror attack in England in three months.
The attack happened just after midnight in Finsbury Park, north London, when a man driving a white van slammed into worshippers who had stopped on a footpath to help an elderly man collapsed at a bus stop.
Eyewitnesses reported hearing the man scream “I want to kill Muslims’’ after the appalling attack, which came as worshippers were leaving night prayers in the final week of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month.
The van driver, a 48-yearold man, was taken down by brave onlookers, who held him on the ground for 20 minutes before police arrived.
One of the men who tackled him, Abdul, told the BBC the man was yelling “I want to kill Muslims’’.
“I hit him in the stomach and he fell to the ground,’’ Abdul said. “I asked him ‘why did you do that?’ I was very emotional, very upset, ‘why did you do that, you killed so many people?’
“He said ‘kill me, kill me’. “He was an Englishman, he looked like a builder, a very big man, very strong.’’
Police, who were called at 12.20am Monday (London time), arrested the man and took him to hospital for an as- sessment of his mental health.
There was a massive response from emergency services, with armed police and paramedics rushing to the scene and cordoning off the streets.
Eight of the injured were taken to three hospitals in the area, while two with minor injuries were treated by paramedics at the scene.
Prime Minister Theresa May said the incident was being treated as a “potential
HE JUST KILLED PEOPLE AND HE LAUGHED
terrorist attack’’ and called an emergency meeting of her national security committee Cobra, and the Metropolitan Police said they had called in the counter-terrorism command to investigate.
The Finsbury Park mosque was once synonymous with radical Islam. But it was reclaimed by the community in 2005 and has been operating as a mainstream mosque and community hub for many years.
The worshippers were struck on Seven Sisters Road, a short distance away from the mosque, near the Muslim Welfare House, as they finished their prayers.
Eyewitness Rabie Rafa, 42, said the man “laughed” when he was arrested by police officers. “He just killed people and he laughed,’’ he said.
WITNESS RABIE RAFA