British media outlets have identified the man who drove into worshippers outside Finsbury Park Mosque yesterday as Darren Osborne of Cardiff. The 47 year old from Wales is being held for terrorism offences and attempted murder, according to London’s Metropolitan Police.
The attack yesterday left one man dead and 10 others injured, after a driver ploughed his van onto the pavement and into a crowd just after midnight on Sunday local time, as worshippers were leaving the mosque following Ramadan prayers.
An eyewitness has told BBC that the driver was shouting “kill all Muslims” – “He was saying, ‘I wanna kill more people, I wanna kill more Muslims,’” said Abdulrahman Aidroos.
A group surrounded the man immediately after the attack and reportedly began kicking and punching him. Aidroos said that an imam (Muslim leader) stepped in to make sure that the man was not harmed.
London’s Police Commissioner Cressida Dick said that the attack was clearly directed at Muslims. “Extra officers are on duty in the area to help reassure the local community. They will be there for as long as they are needed,” she said. “We are working as hard as we can to protect all our communities, and we will not be defeated.”
Authorities say that the driver has no known links to extremist groups. Police said they are not looking for any more suspects.
Meanwhile the British Prime Minister Theresa May visited the Finsbury Mosque the day after the attack, condemning the driver’s actions “It is a reminder that terrorism, extremism and hatred take many forms and our determination to tackle them must be the same, whoever is responsible,” she said.
Watch the PM as she made a statement in Downing Street following the terror attack in Finsbury Park. pic.twitter.com/GyLoOELQeY
— UK Prime Minister (@Number10gov) June 19, 2017
The Finsbury Park attack occurred on the same day as a similar attack was carried out in Paris, where a man rammed a car carrying weapons and explosives into a police van in the Champs Elysees.
