FREED JUST DAYS AGO
» Stab attack jihadi was out on licence » He’s shot dead by undercover cops
A KNIFE-wielding jihadi shot dead by police on a busy high street yesterday was let out of jail just days ago.
Sudesh Amman, 19, was under surveillance.
A source said: “Why was he not kept in jail?”
THE terrorist shot dead by police after a high street knife rampage was under active surveillance by plain-clothes officers.
The attacker was believed to be 19-year-old Sudesh Amman, released days ago from jail where he was sent in 2018 for distributing terrorist material and collecting information useful for terror attacks.
The knifeman, wearing a fake suicide device, was swiftly surrounded by armed officers after stabbing a man and a woman on Streatham High Road in South London with a 10in blade stolen from a nearby shop.
Three shots were fired at the attacker and, in what appeared to be a pre-planned police operation, the body on the ground was quickly surrounded by three armed officers.
Shortly afterwards what appeared to be another officer arrived on an unmarked motorbike.
A 19-year-old student at the scene said: “I saw a man with a machete and silver canisters on his chest being chased by what I assume was an undercover police officer – they were in civilian clothing. The man was then shot. I think I heard three gun shots.”
A woman suffered non-life-threatening injuries when the attacker knifed her in the back with the blade stolen from a Low Price store at 2pm.
He then stabbed a man in the chest by the nearby White Lion pub, leaving him with life-threatening injuries.
As he was shot seconds later by police outside Boots, a third person suffered minor injuries from broken glass. A separate video shows firearms specialists in casual clothes patrolling the street after leaping out of unmarked cars and shouting at bystanders to stand clear.
Uniformed officers arrived in marked police vehicles soon after.
Four police cars and a dog unit were seen raiding a bail hostel in a nearby block of flats around two hours later.
Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Lucy D’Orsi said: “A device was found strapped to the body of the suspect and specialist officers attended. Cordons were put in place and it was quickly established that this was a hoax device.
“The situation has been contained and officers from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command are now leading an investigation into the incident. The incident was quickly declared as a terrorist incident and we believe it to be Islamist-related.
“Officers continue to work in the area to ensure there is no continuing danger to the public and that all evidence is gathered.”
The raided hostel, Hestia Approved Premises, houses offenders being managed in the community after their release from prison. Most residents have been released on licence and are under the supervision of the probation service.
Amman from Harrow, North West London, was jailed for three years and four months in December
2018 after admitting 13 terror offences, but was released after serving half his sentence. The Old Bailey heard Amman had bombmaking manuals and a document called Bloody Brazilian Knife Fightin’ Techniques. He also wrote of how he was thinking of carrying out a terror attack, the court heard. He had shared an al-Qaeda magazine in a family WhatsApp group and said: “The Islamic State is here to stay.” He also shared beheadings videos with his girlfriend and said she should kill her “kuffar” (unbelieving) parents.
He told her: “If you can’t make a bomb because family, friends or spies are watching or suspecting you, take a knife, molotov, sound bombs or a car at night and attack the tourists (crusaders), police and soldiers of taghut, or western embassies in every country you are in this planet.”
A Whitehall source said: “He was under surveillance, that is what allowed police to do their job so quickly. It could have been much worse than it was. There had been concerns when he was in prison but there were no powers for any authority to keep him behind bars.
“There was nothing that could be done to keep him behind bars under existing laws, hence why he was under surveillance and strict licencing conditions. The public will look at this case and say why was this individual not kept behind bars and the Prime Minister shares that view.
“This shines a light on something that clearly needs addressing.”
The concerns about him in jail included “language that suggested he continued to hold extremist views”.
The licencing conditions on his release included a curfew.
It will raise the question why, if he was deemed such a risk he needed to be watched by several undercover police, he was released from jail at all.
There will also be concerns about how many more released offenders deemed a potentially deadly risk are being watched near our high streets.
Last night a massive police operation was under way as the anti-terror squad tried to establish whether Amman was a lone wolf or working with other attackers.
It comes just over two months after two people were killed in the London
There was nothing to keep him behind bars under existing laws
WHITEHALL SOURCE ON
SUDESH AMMAN
Bridge attack by Usman Khan, out on licence after serving half of a 16-year prison sentence for terror offences.
That atrocity led to a row over the early release of serious criminals and the Ministry of Justice ordered an urgent review.
Boris Johnson has claimed scrapping the system of early release would have stopped Khan. But Dave Merritt, whose son Jack was stabbed to death along with Saskia Jones, accused the PM of using the attack as a political boost ahead of December’s election.
New laws being considered by Parliament would require prisoners convicted of serious or violent offences to be in custody for at least two thirds of their sentence.
If approved by MPs and peers, the new powers will come into effect in
April. However, the plans would not have applied to Amman because they only cover more violent offences.
The PM said yesterday: “My thoughts are with the injured victims and their loved ones following today’s horrific attack in Streatham.
“I want to pay tribute to the speed and bravery of the police who responded and confronted the attacker, preventing further injuries and violence, and all of the emergency services who came to the aid of others.
“Following the awful events at Fishmongers’ Hall in December, we have moved quickly to introduce a package of measures to strengthen every
element of our response to terrorism – including longer prison sentences and more money for the police.
“Tomorrow, we will announce further plans for fundamental changes to the system for dealing with those convicted of terrorism offences.”
Chris Phillips, former head of the National Counter Terrorism Security Office, said the Streatham attack “looks very similar to what we saw on London Bridge just a few months ago”.
He added: “We can only hope that police have dealt with it fully now and that it’s one person acting alone.”
TRAUMATISED shoppers have spoken of their horror as they saw the knifeman on the rampage in Streatham High Road.
One witness said the attacker was “running around with a huge knife randomly stabbing people”. Others talked of their panic as they fled the carnage.
Kiranjeet Singh, 38, said a 10in long blade was stolen from his brother’s shop Low Price Store by the attacker at around 2pm.
Witnesses described the knifeman stabbing a woman in the back, and the victim screaming in agony. Police said her injuries were not life-threatening. Onlookers said the attacker then slashed a man in the upper body near the White Lion pub. He was left fighting for his life.
A witness said: “I was outside having a cigarette when I saw a woman in hysterics running up the street screaming ‘he stabbed me in the back’. As that was happening I looked up and saw another commotion and a man run away with a huge knife.
“There was a guy on the floor covered in blood with a huge gash down his side.
“He was in a really bad way and people were circled round him shouting ‘stay with us’. His clothes were soaked in blood.”
Plain clothes officers then shot the attacker dead outside Boots. The witness added: “I heard the
She ran up the street screaming ‘he stabbed me in the back’
ONLOOKER DESCRIBES FIRST KNIFING YESTERDAY
gunshots. There was one first. Then a pause for a while and two or three more. The guy was running around with a huge knife randomly stabbing people so police had to stop him.
“The police seemed to arrive pretty quickly but I was standing outside for at least 25 minutes before the first ambulance arrived. It was too slow.
“They went straight to the guy on the floor to help him.”
Emma Taylor, 31, who lives nearby, said: “I was walking up the high street after going for brunch with friends and we saw a woman screaming outside a small shop.
“As we approached her she was in serious distress and she shouted ‘he’s just grabbed a knife from my shop and stabbed a lady’.
“She stopped us going any further and that’s when we saw the woman, just five metres in front us, being attended to by paramedics.
“She kept trying to get up, she was in pure shock.
“Before we saw all this, unmarked police cars [were] whizzing past us. There was armed police everywhere. It was like something out of a film.”
After shots rang out, bystanders ran into shops to take cover. They stayed there until police evacuated the area after a suspect device was found strapped to the attacker’s body.
Terrified families watching a film around 100 yards away at Streatham Odeon were told “there’s a bomb” before being rushed out of the cinema.
Social care practitioner Richard Mustonen-Smith, 59, said: “My grandson, who is 16, was in the Odeon nearby watching a film. He said everyone was told to leave through the back door because there was a bomb... I’ve lived in Streatham all my life and there are sometimes shootings and stabbings, but this is something else entirely.”
Another witness told Sky News: “I saw this guy literally running on the pavement and behind him there were two or three police officers undercover with a gun.
“They kept telling him ‘stop, stop’. But he didn’t stop and then I saw that they shot him three times. It was horrible seeing it. The man was on the floor and it looked like he had something which police said may be a
GET BACK Police officer moves shoppers device. Police came to us and said ‘you have to leave the shop because he has a bomb in his bag’.” Officers later said the device was found to be a hoax. A brave onlooker Dave Chawner tried to comfort one of the victims who had been stabbed. He said he used a blanket from his bag to compress the wound. Dave added: “It took over 35 minutes while innocent people were bleeding out on the street for the ambulances to arrive, even though we’re just over a mile from one of the biggest hospitals in London and also another hospital that is actually an acute trauma ward and has a helipad on it.”
A third bystander was also injured. Graham Norton, London Ambulance Service strategic commander, said medics arrived in Streatham four minutes after being called at 1.58pm.
He added: “We sent a number of resources including five ambulance crews, an advanced paramedic practitioner, an incident response officer and a motorcycle responder. We also dispatched London’s Air Ambulance.
“The first of our medics arrived in four minutes, and were initially directed to a rendezvous point until the police confirmed it was safe for them to approach and treat patients.
“We treated three patients for injuries, and took all three to hospital.”
ONCE again a convicted terrorist recently freed from prison has gone on a bloody rampage on the streets of our capital city.
Sudesh Amman’s knife attacks in Streatham yesterday uncomfortably echo Usman Khan’s London Bridge outrage.
Khan murdered two people in November, soon after being freed early from a jail sentence for terror offences.
Amman, who slashed two people before being shot dead by police tailing him, was reportedly released just days ago.
Prison deradicalisation programmes clearly aren’t working so require urgent improvement.
And convicted terrorists considered an ongoing threat should never be released.
The swift and decisive intervention of brave officers prevented worse carnage yesterday.
How the attacker was able to knife members of the public before being stopped must be part of any probe into this horrifying event.
The fight against terrorism requires constant vigilance and huge resources.
Giving 20,000 police their marching orders was one of the Tories’ most reckless acts.
PM Boris Johnson should stop dithering and start repairing the gaping holes dangerously punched into the thin blue line by his party.