London defiant
DEATH TOLL RISES
There were renewed appeals for unity in a climate of Brexit-related Islamophobic hate crime after Wednesday’s attacker was identified as Khalid Masood, while Scotland Yard made two “further significant arrests” and the Westminster village returned to normal on Friday.
A 75-year-old man hit by Masood’s marauding car on Westminster Bridge died on Thursday evening and was identified as Leslie Rhodes.
A series of inter-faith meetings were being held across London and elsewhere to ensure communal harmony.
A fund-raising site quickly raised over £530,000 (the target was £250,000) for the family of police officer Keith Palmer, who was stabbed to death by Masood.
London mayor Sadiq Khan described Masood as “evil and twisted” , and said: “When Londoners face adversity we always pull together.”
The investigation into Wednesday’s terror attack that left five dead is called Operation Classific. Mark Rowley of Scotland Yard said: “Yesterday we named the dead terrorist as Khalid Masood — we stated he had a number of aliases — we now know his birth name was Adrian Russell Ajao.”
“We have made two further significant arrests overnight — one in the West Midlands and one in North West,” he said, adding 2,700 items were seized from searches, including “massive of amounts of computer data”.