Suspect in Parliament crash is charged
Driver is accused of attempted murder in collision that left three people injured, London police say.
LONDON — A driver whose car collided with several people before crashing outside Britain’s Parliament has been charged with attempted murder, police in London said Saturday.
The Metropolitan Police force said Salih Khater, 29, is charged with trying to kill police officers and trying to kill members of the public.
Three people were injured when Khater, a British citizen originally from Sudan, struck a group of cyclists before colliding with security outside Parliament on Tuesday. Police say that the crash was an attempt to kill police officers.
One injured person was treated at the scene and two were taken to hospitals, where they were treated and released.
Within minutes of Tuesday morning’s rush-hour crash, police flooded the streets around Parliament and cordoned off an area of the city that is home to government buildings and tourist attractions including Westminster Abbey.
The crash came less than 18 months after an attacker plowed a car into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, killing four people, then fatally stabbed a police officer before being shot dead in a courtyard outside Parliament.
Less than three months later, a van rammed into pedestrians on London Bridge before three men abandoned the vehicle and attacked weekend revelers in the nearby Borough Market. Eight people were killed and 48 injured.
In June 2017, a far-right extremist drove a van into a crowd of worshippers leaving a London mosque, killing one man and injuring eight others.
Police say that because of the methodology and iconic location, prosecutors are treating the Parliament crash as terrorism, although Khater has not been charged with a terrorist offense.
Khater is due to appear in a London court Monday.