‘WE’RE GROWING TIGHTER IN THE FACE OF TERROR’ Kerry man living opposite terrorhit mosque meets its hero imam
KERRY man Pat Murphy enjoyed a meeting last week showing the real effects of the slew of vicious terrorism incidents on the people of London.
Far from dividing the community as they were conceived to, the terrorists’ actions – Islamist and anti-Islamic – is having a galvanising effect on the entire population.
Take it from Cahersiveen man Pat Murphy who met a real hero last week in Muslim cleric Mohammed Mahmoud.
Mahmoud is credited as the man whose appeal to reason prevented the hideous van attack on the Finsbury Park mosque from getting even uglier.
Pat lives opposite the mosque and was on the scene within minutes of an attack that left one man dead and many others injured in the early hours of Monday, June 19. It came as the latest of a series of terrorist attacks – including Westminster and London Bridges – that left the UK capital shaken to its core combined with the horror of the Grenfell Tower disaster.
“It was about 1.30am in the morning when I woke to the sound of a police helicopter overhead and looked out my window to see a police line set up at the mosque and activity all around it,” Pat told The Kerryman.
“Finsbury Park can be a volatile area, but when I got to the police line and asked what was going on I was told it had been a terrorist attack.” The attack left 51-year-old Makram Ali dead and 11 injured - when a van allegedly driven by Darren Osborne ploughed into people outside the mosque. Osborne has since been charged with terrorism-related offences.
That he was in a position to be charged at all was in no small way down to the Imam. “But for Imam Mahmoud it could have turned very ugly indeed. The way he appealed for calm in the immediate aftermath of the attack brought things under control quickly.”
Osborne had been dragged from the cab of his van while trying to make his escape and was being kicked and punched by an understandably hostile mob until the cleric stepped in.
One eyewitness said they believed Osborne would have died but for Mahmoud weighing-in, directing the mob to stop punching and to hold Osborne until the police arrived.
“It was a tragic and barbaric terrorist attack. All life is sacred,” the imam was reported saying afterwards.
“I pass the imam regularly but was moved to make him off just to tell him how incredible I think his actions were,” said Pat.
“These attacks are bringing us together more strongly as a community, even though we may be of separate faiths. He’s a real hero who protected a man who was a direct threat to him and his people and we all can learn a lot from his response” Pat said.