Fanatic who killed three in park spree ‘radicalised in jail’
As CCTV shows moment he browsed for knife in Morrisons, murder trial is told...
A TERRORIST who killed three men with ‘ruthless efficiency’ in less than a minute was under the spell of a notorious preacher, a court heard yesterday.
Khairi Saadallah fatally stabbed James Furlong, 36, Joseph Ritchie-Bennett, 39, and David Wails, 49, as they sat together on a summer’s evening in a park in Reading.
CCTV footage showed the 26-yearold buying the murder weapon the day before in a Morrisons store.
The Old Bailey was told the former Libyan soldier had become friends with Omar Brooks, a radical preacher jailed multiple times for terror offences and a member of banned terror group Al-Muhajiroun.
Saadallah, who was said to be impressionable and volatile, was desperate to be associated with Brooks, attending prayers and the gym with him while at HMP Bullingdon in Oxfordshire in 2017.
He should still have been in prison for an appalling catalogue of violence when he launched last year’s attack.
But he was freed early on appeal and immediately began planning the knife rampage he launched 16 days later.
The Home Office had wanted to deport him but could not do so because of ‘legal barriers’.
Yesterday it emerged that officials knew Saadallah had trained with Ansar Al-Sharia, an Islamist militia in Libya that helped overthrow Muammar Gaddafi. He had even posted pictures of himself on Facebook wearing military fatigues and bearing guns.
Saadallah went missing after his first two asylum applications were rejected in 2012. He was tracked down the following year but broke his promise to leave Britain.
In 2018 he was granted leave to remain until 2023, despite being in the midst of carrying out 11 crimes.
Following his release from HMP Bullingdon, Saadallah spent his time browsing YouTube videos of Islamic State executions and terror attacks including 9/11. Police visited his squalid Reading flat last June 19 when concerns were raised by his brother as well as by mental health staff and a probation officer.
Hiding the knife behind him, he cheerfully told officers ‘Good to see you’ and claimed he was well.
The next day he set off on his killing spree with a Union Jack bandana tied around his knee. Three more of his targets survived the attack, which lasted less than a minute.
Alison Morgan QC, prosecuting, said: ‘The defendant was ruthlessly efficient in his actions.
‘He believed that in carrying out this attack he was acting in pursuit of his extremist ideology. The defendant was aiming to inflict the maximum amount of damage in the shortest possible time to allow him to kill as many people as possible.’
Saadallah initially told police he wanted to admit to ‘the jihad that I done’ but he later feigned mental illness.
He pleaded guilty in November to three counts of murder and three of attempted murder. But he denies it was a terror attack and his motivation will be determined by Mr Justice Sweeney.
The judge adjourned the hearing until today when he will hear more about Saadallah’s mental health before passing sentence on Monday.
A psychiatrist has found the attack was unrelated to mental disorder or substance misuse.