Second man is held over Buckingham Palace sword attack

A SECOND man was being questioned on suspicion of assisting the Buckingham Palace sword attacker last night.

Police suspect the man may have known that Mohiussunnath Chowdhury was plotting a terrorist attack in central London.

Chowdhury was arrested on Friday night as he lunged for a 4ft sword after ploughing through cones by the Victoria Memorial at the end of The Mall in his car.

Three police officers suffered minor injuries in the scuffle as the 26-year-old was incapacitated by CS gas.

Counter-terror detectives remained at Chowdhury’s £230,000 family home in a suburb of Luton yesterday.

Neighbours said the middle-class family, who are of Bangladeshi heritage, showed no signs of extremism. They said the attacker and his younger sister had attended Church of England schools before going on to study at university.

One neighbour, who did not want to be named, said: ‘It’s a massive shame because he is such a good guy, as good as gold. I don’t know what was in his head.

‘He seemed pretty quiet. I believe he lived with his mum, dad and sister. They’ve been here since we moved in, around four years ago.

‘I’ve seen his mum and dad and him most of the time. He’s a very nice guy… I still can’t believe it. I don’t know what has been in his head. I believe it must have been depression or something. The way he has done it, it was like he was probably expecting to be caught.’

Another local, aged 35, said: ‘They’ve lived here five or six years, I think his dad is a taxi driver. I got up yesterday morning and the police were there.’

Scotland Yard detectives can hold the suspected jihadist until Friday after arresting him on suspicion of terrorist offences.

Chowdhury was dragged from his blue Toyota Prius after pulling up close to the palace behind a police van just after 8.30pm on Friday. Witnesses said he shouted ‘ Allahu Akbar’ during the scuffle that triggered a lockdown in central London.

Two of the officers suffered hand injuries as they grappled over the sword, which was in the passenger footwell.

A taxi driver said: ‘I asked an officer if he got away, and he said that there was only one attacker and two coppers got whacked on their hands.

‘This bloke had driven on the wrong side of the road and when police came out to challenge him, and say that he had gone the wrong way, the bloke got out the car. He had a big machete. He was waving it at the policemen who managed to get him on the ground.’

Police quickly identified the attacker and searched his family home in Luton, as well as a previous address in Uxbridge, West London. As they unravelled his movements over the past week, they arrested a second man, aged 30, at an address in West London.

Police said the man, who has not been named, had been held on suspicion of being involved in the commission, preparation or instigation of terrorism.

No members of the Royal Family were at Buckingham Palace at the time of the incident, with the Queen at her Scottish summer residence, Balmoral.

Britain remains on high alert for further low-tech attacks, possibly involving attackers in vehicles armed with knives.

Thousands attending events over the Bank Holiday weekend face heightened security measures. Security expert Raffaello Pantucci, of the Royal United Services Institute, said ‘peripheral figures’ were of increasing concern to security services.

He said recent cases had shown there was a huge risk of crude attacks by individuals radicalised online.

‘Police worry about the speed “from flash to bang” because of the tools and methods terrorists are prepared to use, whether its knives, vehicles or whatever,’ he said. ‘This means there is a very large range of potential targets out there and you only have to look at events over the summer to see how security has been heightened.’

‘Large range of potential targets’