The British police has released the names of two of the three London attackers. According to BBC, they are Khuram Shazad Butt, 27, and Rachid Redouane, 30. Scotland Yard said Khuram Shazad Butt and Rachid Redouane, both from Barking, carried out the attack.
Khuram Shazad Butt (left) and Rachid Redouane (right)
Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said Butt was known to the Police and MI5, but there was no evidence to suggest this attack was being planned.
A statement from Scotland Yard said:“Khuram Shazad Butt was known to the police and MI5. However, there was no intelligence to suggest that this attack was being planned and the investigation had been prioritised accordingly. The other named man, Rachid Redouane, was not known.”
Khuram Butt, one of the three jihadi attackers who killed seven people in London on Saturday, was a supporter of the banned Islamist group al-Muhajiroun who only last month was spotted urging people in east London not to participate in the general election.
The 27-year old was described by locals in his neighbourhood of Barking, east London, as the son of parents from Jhelum, a town in Pakistan’s Punjab province, but he is believed to have been brought up in Britain, become a keen supporter of Arsenal football club, whose shirt he wore during the attack, and spoke with a London accent. It is not clear if he was born in the UK or abroad.
The brother of one of the terrorists was a soldier, according to the Daily Mail. It adds that the killer, 27, found his brother dead aged twelve, and it has been suggested he was traumatised at this young age. His brother, however, volunteered for the Army Reserves.
Releasing the names of two of the three attackers, Scotland Yard said:
Khuram Shazad Butt, 27, (20.4.90), was a British citizen who was born in Pakistan. Rachid Redouane, 30 (31.7.86) had claimed to be Moroccan and Libyan. He also used the name Rachid Elkhdar, with a different date of birth of 31.7.91. Inquiries are ongoing to confirm the identity of their accomplice.
Detectives would like to hear from anyone who has any information about these men that may assist them with the investigation. They are particularly keen to hear about places they may have frequented and their movements in the days and hours before the attack.
According to the Telegraph, it emerged that Butt had appeared in the Channel 4 documentary The Jihadis Next Door, which warned of the rise of extreme Islam in London.
Khuram Butt who appeared on a Channel 4 documentary about Islamic extremists
The third man has not yet been named.
Separately Reuters adds that one of three attackers lived in Ireland for a time but did not attract the attention of law-enforcement authorities, Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny said on Monday.
An Irish identification card was found on the body of one of the three attackers, a Moroccan national in his late 20s who lived in Ireland with his British wife, state broadcaster RTE reported on Monday citing police sources. RTE said his wife has been arrested by British police. Irish police declined to comment on the report.
In a television interview with RTE during a visit to Chicago, Kenny said that the man in question did not appear to have been on an Irish police watch list.
"There are a small number of people in Ireland who are being monitored and observed in respect of radicalisation and matters relevant to that. In this case -- these facts are being checked -- my understanding is that this individual was not a member of this small group," Kenny said in the interview.
Asked about reports that the attacker was given the right to live in Ireland because of a Scottish partner, Kenny said Ireland grants such working visas in accordance with Irish law but that it had not been confirmed that the man in question has secured a visa in this way.
The use of the EU's common travel area was "part and parcel of the phenomenon of terrorist incidents" not just in Britain but also in Sweden, Belgium, France Germany and other locations, Kenny was quoted as saying. Ireland is hoping to maintain a common travel area between the United Kingdom and Ireland after Brexit.
