Terrorist dried knife on his beard

ONE of the London Bridge terrorists washed his bloodied knife in a bar sink and dried it on his beard before resuming his slaughter, chilling CCTV revealed yesterday.

A grim compilation of video was played at the Old Bailey inquests into the deaths of the eight victims, charting the massacre in minute detail.

There were gasps in court as the three terrorists’ remorseless rampage was screened.

Khuram Butt, Rachid Redouane and Youssef Zaghba first rammed pedestrians with a van on London Bridge before heading, armed with knives, into bars in the Borough Market area.

They stuck together as a unit for most of the attack, taunting onlookers as “unbelievers” and yelling about Allah, said Gareth Patterson QC, representing six of the bereaved families.

No one was spared their onslaught – not even a nurse tending to a wounded waiter.

All eight victims received their fatal injuries in the first three minutes – six stabbed and two hit by the van – but dozens of others were left wounded.

In perhaps the most disturbing footage, the killers kicked through a locked door at the Black & Blue bar and circled customers.

Redouane was seen squaring up to one man, Roy Larner, before plunging his knife twice into his abdomen – a moment that drew a shocked response from the courtroom.

Nearby, Butt stabbed two other men. He then walked over to a sink, washed his knife under a tap and wiped it through his beard before moving back out into the street.

Zaghba, meanwhile, helped himself to a drink from the tap. It was one of the “most chilling” reactions, Jonathan Hough QC, counsel for the coroner, said.

Similar insouciance was shown by Redouane, who stooped to tie his shoelaces in the midst of the carnage.

The inquest was warned at the start of the day that “distressing images” would be shown, much of which will never be made public.

The violence began at 10.06pm on June 3, 2017, when a two-and-a-half ton rental van driven by Zaghba mounted the pavement at London Bridge.

CCTV from a bus recorded the traumatic moment Christine Archibald, 30, was caught beneath the wheel of the van and dragged several yards.

Her partner, Tyler Ferguson, chased the vehicle until his stricken fiancée came free. He was seen falling to his knees at her side.

Ms Archibald died of her injuries. Mr Patterson, representing her family, said: “Just before the point of impact you see his arm was raised as if he were trying to pull her out of the way.

“It looks like he was doing everything he could to get her out of harm’s way.” It was later suggested that barriers could have saved Ms Archibald’s life had they been installed following the Westminster Bridge terror attack the previous March.

“If there had been barriers Christine Archibald and Xavier Thomas (a tourist knocked from London Bridge into the Thames) would now be with us today,” Mr Patterson said.

All three terrorists were shot dead at 10.16pm by armed police officers, who had jumped out of their car so quickly that they forgot to apply the handbrake, leaving the vehicle rolling.

Butt and Redouane were shot again on the ground, amid concerns the suicide belts they were wearing were real.

Det Supt Rebecca Riggs, who led the Scotland Yard investigation, said the scale was “like nothing else I have known before in my entire career”.

More than 1,500 officers from three forces were involved, 2,800 statements were taken and 4,700 people had registered involvement with the incident.

Officers spent a total of 9,500 hours trawling through CCTV footage to look for clues, she added.