A minute’s silence is taking place in Reading to remember the three people including a teacher killed in a terror attack on Saturday, as police officers continue to question the only suspect on suspicion of murder.
Khairi Saadallah, the 25-year-old Libyan refugee held over the stabbings in Forbury Gardens near the town centre, was on MI5’s radar in the middle of last year.
Witnesses described horrific scenes at the park, which is popular with families, especially amid coronavirus lockdown measures. Thames Valley police said they had detained and arrested the suspect within five minutes of the first call at 6.56pm.
The home secretary, Priti Patel, will visit Reading on Monday to meet officers investigating the incident, as well as those who intervened in the attack as it unfolded. The security minister, James Brokenshire, confirmed there would be no change to the UK’s terror threat level.
The mayor of Reading, David Stevens, and the leader of Reading council, Jason Brock, are inviting the people of the town to hold a minute’s silence at 10am in memory of the victims.
“Reading is a very close-knit community and we’re very united, we’re very strong and it’s very important we don’t allow an act of terror to divide us as we move forward,” Brock said.
Among the three people killed was a 36-year-old secondary school teacher, James Furlong. Students at the Holt school in Wokingham, where Furlong was head of history, government and politics, are lighting candles and laying flowers in memory of their teacher.
Former pupil Molly Collins, who left the school in 2017, told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “He was such a loved teacher. I can’t find anyone that ever had a bad word to say about him, and to hear that it was him is just so, so sad.
“He was so passionate and enthusiastic about history and about learning, and anything that was boring, anything you didn’t find interesting, he would make it interesting.”
Saadallah is understood to have been under investigation as a person who might travel abroad “for extremist reasons”, but sources indicated the inquiry was closed relatively quickly without any action taken as no genuine threat or immediate risk was identified. Intelligence agencies believe he had mental health problems, the sources said.
There was no immediate evidence the Reading attack was underpinned by an allegiance to Islamic State or al-Qaida, although investigations are ongoing.
There are about 40,000 people on the radar of the security services at any one time but many of them are considered peripheral or low risk, with about 3,000 subject to active investigations.
A former head of UK counter-terrorism, Sir Mark Rowley, told BBC Radio 4 police and security services faced a “wicked problem” deciding which of the 40,000 people known to them could launch a terror attack.
He said: “What you end up with operationally is about, I think, about 3,000 people under investigation at one stage. But there is 40,000 people … whose names have touched the system.
“And in that 40,000 are lots of volatile people who dip in and out of interests in extreme ideology, and to spot one of those who is going to go from a casual interest into a determined attacker, which can happen in a matter of days, is the most wicked problem that the services face.”
Saadallah was initially arrested on suspicion of murder, with police not treating the incident as terrorism, but was rearrested under section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000, giving police greater powers of detention.
Granted asylum in the UK, he is understood to have served prison sentences for relatively minor offences not related to terrorism.
Brokenshire told BBC Breakfast there was no indication of a change to the UK’s threat level.
The security minister said: “The police have indicated they’re not looking for anyone else at the moment in terms of this particular incident and I think the point is we must allow them to get on with their investigation.”
Boris Johnson, the prime minister, hinted at a fresh crackdown on terror suspects when he said the government was ready to act on any lessons that emerge from the tragedy.
source https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/22/reading-terror-attack-minutes-silence-to-be-held-in-memory-of-victims
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