Stabbing suspect was assessed to be not a threat by deradicalisation team
Tributes for three men stabbed to death, as stories of those who tried to save them emerge
THE suspect accused of stabbing to death three people in a Reading Park was assessed as part of Prevent, the Government’s deradicalisation programme, it emerged last night.
Mentors in the anti-extremism programme ultimately deemed Khairi Saadallah not be a terror threat.
It came as the number of terror suspects on MI5’S watch list has risen to 43,000, more than double the figure from the previous year.
MI5 has admitted that Saadallah, accused of stabbing to death three people in a Reading park on Saturday, was briefly under investigation, but that the case file was closed after two months.
Whitehall sources said the information passed to intelligence officers was “not credible enough” to warrant a full investigation into an allegation that Saadallah, 25, had been planning to travel to Libya, his home country, to fight with extremist groups.
Last night it was claimed that police spoke to Saadallah the night before the stabbing attack when a mental health team failed to reach him during a scheduled visit. Saadallah was found on a street and taken back to his council flat, according to the Daily Mail.
Sir Mark Rowley, the former chief of counter-terrorism policing, said police and security services faced a “wicked problem” deciding which of the 43,000 people on MI5’S radar could launch a terror attack.
A Home Office document, unnoticed when published in March at the height of Covid-19, said 3,000 terror suspects were “subjects of interest” involved in 600 “priority investigations” but 40,000 more had been placed on a second closed case list because their level of threat was not judged to be sufficient.
The report stated: “A substantial element of the increase to over 40,000 is the inclusion of individuals who have never travelled to the UK but whose details have been passed to MI5 by foreign intelligence services, in order that MI5 be alerted should they enter the UK.”
Richard Walton, former head of the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command, said: “It is a ridiculously high number. The bigger question is why are there 40,000 people who think it is acceptable to consider murdering people. It tells you the scale of the problem. Nine-tenths of the people on that list are Islamist extremists.”
Priti Patel yesterday promised new laws to remove foreign criminals from Britain, declaring anyone who “abuses our hospitality” would be deported.
The Home Secretary said she would accelerate legislation on foreign offenders by making it easier to remove them, following the terror attack in Reading.
She told MPS: “The Government’s position is if you abuse our hospitality and commit crimes in the UK, we will do everything in our power to remove you. I am also clear that tougher action is needed to speed up removals and deter foreign criminals from entering the UK. It’s not always easy; there are barriers to overcome. That is something we will look at through other legislative means.”
She promised “further and greater criminality checks at the border”, with new laws to bar any foreign national seeking to live or work in the UK who had been jailed for more than a year.
New legislation will make it easier to deport those convicted of minor offences. At present, only those guilty of offences that warrant more than a 12-month prison sentence face automatic deportation, which excludes offences like assaulting a police officer, with its maximum one-year sentence. The changes could lower the 12-month limit or allow officials to take action case by case.
FAMILY and friends of the Reading terror attack victims yesterday paid tribute to “three of the kindest, genuine and loveliest people” they had known.
The second and third victims were named as Joe Ritchie-bennett, 39, who moved to the UK from Philadelphia 15 years ago, and David Wails, 49, a senior scientist at a global chemicals company.
The pair were sitting in Forbury Gardens with a group of friends including James Furlong, 36, a teacher, when they were targeted in a violent and apparently random attack on Saturday.
Several who witnessed the violence and fought to save them in the aftermath are severely traumatised, The Daily Telegraph understands.
Three people who were injured in the attack, at least one of whom was from the same group as the victims, have now been released from hospital.
Khairi Saadallah, 25, who moved to the UK from Libya in 2012, and was granted asylum in 2018, was arrested and is being questioned by police.
It emerged that Mr Ritchie-bennett worked for a law firm in London after moving to the UK and later joined a Dutch pharmaceutical company in Reading about 10 years ago.
Mr Wails, whose family is from Chesterfield, Derbyshire, worked for the Low Carbon Technology group at Johnson Matthey in nearby Sonning Common.
Mr Furlong was a much-loved history teacher at the Holt School in Wokingham, which described him as “wonderfully talented and inspirational”. More than 100 students joined a two-minute silence at the school yesterday as a flag was lowered to halfmast.
All three victims drank together at the Blagrave Arms, a community pub whose staff said they were “devastated” by their deaths.
A sign on the door yesterday said: “Dave, James and Joe. We will never forget you.”
Mr Ritchie-bennett, was still mourning the loss of his husband, Ian, to colon cancer six years ago. Despite his loss, he could always be relied upon to cheer people up and was described as “the life and soul of the party” who always had a smile on his face. His brother, Robert Ritchie, a captain in the Philadelphia police force, told the local newspaper: “Our family is heartbroken and beside ourselves. He did not deserve to go out like this.”
Bradley Cooper, a friend of the trio, said they were “three of the kindest, genuine and loveliest people” he had ever had the pleasure of knowing.
“Rest In Peace, and I hope you are all having a drink together,” he wrote on Facebook. “I’m raising a glass to you three and thinking of all the happy memories.”
Martin Cooper, CEO of Reading Pride, said the victims were all supporters of the organisation and would be “sorely missed”.
“James, Joe, and David were true gentlemen. Each with their own unique personality,” he said in a statement. “They were a support network for individuals, and I know they will be sorely missed by many. Love unites, and we must rally together as a community. We must be there for each other.” Mr Cooper said he met the men in Forbury Gardens a couple of weeks ago. “During lockdown it was the perfect place to go,” he said. “It has a walled garden and was a very pleasant place to be.” He said that while Mr Ritchie-bennett was a “colourful character” who cheered people up, Mr Furlong was quieter but the person they went to for advice.
Mr Cooper said he did not believe it to be a targeted attack. “It was an attack on human life, irrespective of the community in which they came from.”
Chris Loder, Conservative MP for West Dorset, revealed that one of his assistants was among those who carried out CPR on one of the victims. He told the Commons that the young man, “ran courageously towards danger, his only focus to help the injured”. He “not only used his own shirt to stem the bleeding of one victim, but continued resuscitation on a second victim until the paramedics arrived” as he paid tribute to his “remarkable and extraordinary effort”.