More questions as third London terrorist named
ALL three London Bridge terrorists have been identified as security services prepare to launch a review into the atrocity amid mounting questions for police and MI5.
The third attacker was yesterday named as Youssef Zaghba, an Italian national of Moroccan descent, who was living in east London.
The latest development came on a day when more victims of Saturday night’s attack were named, and a minute’s silence was observed across South Wales and the rest of the UK for those killed in the terror outrage.
It was yesterday reported that Zaghba was stopped at Bologna’s airport trying to fly to Turkey in March last year amid concern he was intending to travel on to Syria.
The 22-year-old is said to have told Italian authorities “I’m going to be a terrorist”, while officers reportedly found Islamic State-related material on his mobile phone when they intercepted him.
He was prevented from continuing his journey to Istanbul, placed on a watch list and flagged to Moroccan and British counterparts, it was claimed.
Italian media said authorities took Zaghba’s phone and passport but they were returned to him as there was insufficient evidence to accuse him of any terrorrelated offence.
There has been no official comment on the reports from UK authorities, but Scotland Yard said Zaghba was not a police or MI5 “subject of interest”.
The latest reports came as counterterror agencies were already facing intense scrutiny after it was revealed another member of the terror gang, Khuram Shazad Butt, 27, had been known to security services.
Butt was investigated by officers in 2015 but they found no evidence he was planning an attack and he was “prioritised in the lower echelons of our investigative work”, police said.
The disclosure means perpetrators in all three of the terrorist outrages to hit Britain this year had at some point appeared on the radar of security agencies.
Theresa May said a review had been launched after the Manchester bombing last month and she expected the same process following Saturday’s rampage.
Butt, a father-of-two who appeared on Channel 4 documentary The Jihadis Next Door, was also reported to the anti-terror hotline in 2015 for showing signs of “extremism or radicalisation”.
Lord Carlile, a former counter-terror laws watchdog, said: “I feel a sense of disappointment this morning that the perpetrator Butt slipped off the radar.
“In my view, we need to review what happened in his case and learn the lessons so that the methodology of the response to known suspicions is improved.” In other developments: A fresh arrest in Barking took the total number held as part of the investigation to 13, with 12 released without charge;
Intensive inquiries are being mounted to establish how the three men knew each other, with police appealing for anyone with information to contact them;
Claims emerged that Butt was reported to counter-terrorism authorities almost a year before the deadly attack after a “violent scuffle” with a member of an antiextremism organisation;
Australian nurse Kirsty Boden was the third victim killed in the attack to be named. Her family paid tribute, saying: “As she ran towards danger, in an effort to help people on the bridge, Kirsty sadly lost her life”;
A British Transport Police officer told how he chased the three terrorists after his colleague was stabbed in the eye; and
Fifteen people hurt in the incident remain in a critical condition
Zaghba, Pakistan-born British citizen Butt and Rachid Redouane, 30, who claimed to be Moroccan-Libyan, launched a murderous rampage around London Bridge and Borough Market on Saturday night.
Butt and Redouane, who also used the name Rachid Elkhdar, lived in Barking, while Zaghba is reported to have worked in a restaurant in London.
Seven victims were killed and dozens injured in the spree, which ended when armed police shot dead the perpetrators just eight minutes after the first emergency call.