WHY WAS HE FREE?
Terrorist Khuram Butt was probed by police for two years and appeared in C4’s The Jihadis Next Door waving an ISIS-style flag in Regent’s Park
LONDON Bridge murderer Khuram Butt was left free to kill despite being a known Islamist fanatic. The extremist had been under police investigation since 2015 and even appeared on a TV programme called The Jihadis Next Door, where he was part of a group who paid homage to a black Isis-style flag in London’s Regent’s Park.
Butt, named by police yesterday along with accomplice Rashid Redouane,
was a known associate of Isis mouthpiece and suspected terror recruiter Anjem Choudary.
Two members of the public had warned police about Butt’s extremism, and he is suspected of links to two notorious Isis murderers.
But he remained free. And on Saturday night, he and Redouane killed seven people and injured 49 in a brutal rampage with a third terrorist who has yet to be identified.
The gang rammed pedestrians with a van on London Bridge then ran amok in Borough Market, hacking and slashing at civilians with knives, before police cut them down in a hail of bullets.
Mohammed Shafiq, head of the anti-extremism Ramadhan Foundation, said last night: “I am not surprised Butt carried out the attack. There are serious questions for the authorities.
“Many of us in the Muslim community have been demanding action against these extremists, to no avail.”
Shafiq said Butt, 27, was well known for his links to Choudary’s vile group al-Muhajiroun, now banned.
He added: “Choudary, Butt and their group of terrorist sympathisers have been known to authorities and nothing was done for years.
“I call for an immediate investigation into what the police knew, what was done and why action was not taken against them.”
Choudary has been linked to the recruitment of more than 100 British terror suspects.
The UK’s senior anti-terrorism officer, Scotland Yard assistant commissioner Mark Rowley, brushed aside criticism of how Butt’s case was handled. He said he had seen “nothing yet” to suggest that a “poor decision has been made”.
Rowley confirmed Butt had been known to police and MI5 and that an investigation of him began in 2015.
But he said the authorities never found any evidence he was planning an attack, so he was moved into the “lower echelons” of the 500 most active terror investigations.
Rowley refused to say when the investigation was downgraded. He added: “It’s not a black and white issue but over a period the operation has fallen to the lower echelons.
“There was no intelligence to suggest this attack was being planned and the investigation had been prioritised accordingly.”
Rowley said work was continuing to learn more about the attackers and “whether they were assisted or supported by anyone else”.
Butt was a British citizen whose parents moved here from Pakistan. He lived in Barking, east London.
Redouane, who was a “clean skin” not known to police, also lived in the area. It’s not known how they met each other.
Butt was an Arsenal fan – he wore their shirt as he murdered his victims – and spoke with a London accent. He had worked as a security guard and for London Underground and had a job as an office manager for KFC.
He boasted on his CV that he was good at working under pressure – and a trained first-aider.
But some in Barking who knew him described his descent into extremism.
A female neighbour said: “He didn’t like it when I was out and about. He didn’t like women. I think he thinks they should be suppressed at home.”
Sky News spoke to a woman who said Butt would stare in a “sinister” way at women out cycling on the estate.
Butt’s own wife wore a full-face veil. They had two young children – a threeyear-old and a baby aged about one.
Locals also said Butt had been banned from a mosque for ranting at an imam who urged worshippers to vote in the 2015 general election. He believed democracy was anti-Islamic.
Butt’sWhatsapp feed was filled with religious tracts.
A former friend said he phoned the anti-terror hotline about Butt in 2015 after seeing how he had become radicalised by YouTube videos of US hate preacher Ahmad Musa Jibril.
And mum-of-three Erica Gasparri said she reported Butt to police after he tried to brainwash her son in a park.
Erica told The Guardian she went to the park to confront Butt after her boy came home and told her: “Mummy, I want to be a Muslim.”
She said Butt told her: “I am ready to do whatever I need to in the name of Allah, including killing my own mother.”
Erica added: “I don’t know how fast I
went from the park to the police. I gave them four photos of him and they rang Scotland Yard when I was there. They were very concerned.
“Then I heard nothing. That was two years ago. No one came to me. If they had, this could have been prevented.”
Butt featured heavily in Channel 4 documentary The Jihadis Next Door, where he and other extremists were filmed in Regent’s Park paying homage to a sinister “black flag of Islam”.
Group leader Mohammed Shamsuddin bragged: “The sharia is coming to the UK – this black flag one day is gonna be on 10 Downing Street.
“Our message is deadly. We are calling for world domination and sharia for the UK.”
Another of the group, Abu Haleema, had contact with a teenage jihadi who wanted to behead a victim in Australia.
There there is no suggestion Haleema or Shamsuddin are linked to the London Bridge attack.
The security services are also investigating links between Butt and two al-Muhajiroun members believed to have gone to Syria to join Isis.
Siddhartha Dhar, known as Jihadi Sid, and 6ft 6in “Jihadi Giant” Mohammed Reza Haque have reportedly become “executioners” who publicly the death cult’s victims.
One of Butt’s relatives said he also tried to travel to Syria, but that has not been confirmed.
Redouane was a former pastry chef who claimed Moroccan and Libyan descent and had lived in Dublin as well as London. Police identified him from an Irish ID card they found in his pocket.
He also used another name, Rachid Elkhdar, and claimed to be 24. His ex-partner Charisse O’Leary, 38, was among the seven women and five men arrested after the attack.
A neighbour said she threw Redouane out recently, but he returned hours before the terror attack to see his year-old daughter.
All 12 people arrested the day after the murders have now been released without charge, but police carried out two new raids yesterday morning.
Armed officers hit an address in Newham and another in Barking, a tyre depot once used as a swingers’ club.
Two suspects were seen being taken into custody. Stun grenades were used in the Barking raid.