Suspect in car crash is British citizen

A MAN detained on suspicion of carrying out a terrorist attack outside Britain’s parliament is Salih Khater, a British citizen of Sudanese origin, a European security source told reporters yesterday.

Police believe a car was deliberately driven into pedestrians and cyclists, injuring three people, before ramming a security barrier outside parliament on Tuesday morning.

The 29-year-old driver was arrested by armed officers at the scene moments later. He is currently being questioned on suspicion of preparing acts of terrorism and yesterday was further arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, although police have said he is not cooperating with detectives.

The security source told Reuters that Khater was from Birmingham, central England, and was not known to security services before Tuesday.

A spokesman for nearby Coventry University told the Daily Telegraph newspaper Khater had studied accountancy from September 2017 until May 2018 but failed his first year course and lost his place.

Yesterday, London police confirmed they were satisfied they knew the identity of the arrested man, although they did not name him.

In a statement, police said officers were still searching one address in the city of Birmingham but had concluded their investigations at two other properties in Birmingham and Nottingham, also in central England.

“The priority of the investigation team continues to be to understand the motivation behind this incident,” the statement said.