U.K. ATTACKER IN TV DOC
Linked to ISIL executioner
LONDON BRIDGE ATTACKER PARADED EXTREMISM ON TV
L ON DON • Two years before becoming an executioner in Syria for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Siddhartha Dhar was filmed in his garage in London waving the black flag of ISIL and preaching hate.
The documentary, The Jihadis Next Door by Britain’s Channel 4, about the rise of militant Islam in Britain, was praised for showing how the words of extremists can soon be turned to violent action by those who hear them.
“The reality is that the hatred of these horrible, cowardly men can inspire others to action,” The Daily Telegraph wrote after the documentary’s release last year.
On Monday, it was revealed that the ringleader of the London Bridge terror attack — Khuram Butt — was also featured in the documentary.
Butt was seen praying with a group of radical Muslims in Regent’s Park, London, including Mohammed Shamsuddin who was filmed warning that the black flag of Islam would one day fly over Downing Street and calling for Britain to adopt Shariah law. Shamsuddin was also filmed laughing at videos of ISIL drowning men in a cage.
By the time the documentary went out, Butt, 27, a British national who was born in Pakistan, had already been under investigation by the police and MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence service, for six months.
But despite receiving calls from concerned members of the public about Butt’s increasingly radical views, police concluded he was not a threat and the investigation was scaled back.
The revelation will add to pressure on the authorities over whether enough is being done to tackle extremism, after it emerged that Butt is the third terrorist in recent months to carry out an attack despite being known to security services.
Prime Minister Theresa May has been criticized for weakening security services through years of austerity. Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn called on May to resign and said in a speech Monday, “You cannot protect the public on the cheap. The police and security services must get the resources they need, not 20,000 police cuts.”
With Britain set to go to the polls Thursday in a general election, terrorism is centre of the campaign.
But Britain’s most senior counterterror officer, Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, defended the investigation and said he had seen nothing so far to suggest a “poor decision had been made” about Butt. Rowley said there had been no intelligence to suggest Butt was planning a terrorist act and no evidence that he had committed any terrorist offences.
He said that as a result Butt — who wore an Arsenal soccer shirt when he carried out his deadly attack that killed seven with almost 50 wounded — had been “prioritized in the lower echelons of our investigative work.”
His admission came as it emerged that Butt also had links to the radical preacher Anjem Choudary, former leader of the banned Al-Muhajiroun group, and was with him the day after the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby in Woolwich, London, in 2013.
Unlike Butt, his accomplices were not known to the security services and are both thought to be foreign nationals.
The second terrorist was named as Rachid Redouane, 30, who police said had claimed to be both Moroccan and Libyan. He was known to use the name Rachid Elkhdar, and was understood to be in possession of an Irish identity card when he was shot dead by police. Redouane, who was married to a British woman and had an 18-month-old daughter, is thought to have lived in Dublin previously.
It was not clear when or how he arrived in the U.K.
Police said while they believed they knew who the third terrorist was, they were working with international partners to identify him.
It is not clear how the three men knew one another, but at least two of the gang had lived within metres of one another in the Barking area of east London.
Erica Gasparri, an Italian mother of three who lived close to Butt, claimed she had reported him to police two years ago, after he began “brainwashing” her children.
She said she had confronted him after her two children came home from a park and said “Mummy I want to become a Muslim.”
It also emerged that Butt was thrown out of his local mosque two years ago after clashing with the imam about politics.
In the documentary, Butt was pictured with Abu Haleema, who was accused of radicalizing a British schoolboy who was convicted over a plot to behead police officers during an Anzac Day parade in Australia.
Dhar, who also appeared prominently in the documentary, skipped bail while under investigation over his association with Choudary, and fled to Syria.
Dhar replaced Mohammed Emwazi, aka Jihadi John, as the terror group’s notorious executioner.