Financial Times - Terrorists tried to hire HGV for London Bridge attack
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June 10, 2017. Naomi Rovnick, Press Association.
Police working with haulage rental companies to understand risks.
The perpetrators of last weekend’s London terror attack tried to hire a 7.5 tonne lorry on the morning of the atrocity, UK police have revealed as they released evidence gathered in their inquiries.
In an echo of last July’s atrocity in Nice, when a truck was driven into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day, the London attacker Khuram Shazad Butt attempted to hire a lorry online but his payment did not go through, the Metropolitan Police said.
Instead, about four hours before the attack he rented the white Renault van that he, Rachid Redouane and Youssef Zaghba ploughed into pedestrians on London Bridge before jumping out to kill eight victims and injure dozens more in Borough Market.
Police revealed that the terrorists had used 12-inch ceramic knives with pink blades for their stabbing spree, and that they left wine bottles “believed to be filled with a flammable liquid,” in the van.
The Renault vehicle also contained two blow torches, as well as office chairs, a suitcase and bags of gravel. The police believe the attackers put the furniture in the van as part of a cover story for hiring the van.
Police believe Butt was driving the van.
Dean Haydon, head of the Metropolitan Police’s counter-terrorism command, said: “When I come back to Butt trying to get hold of a 7.5 tonne lorry — the effect could have been even worse.”
Mr Haydon added: “Was there a plan B that, after they had stabbed individuals, were they then planning to come back to the van and ignite the Molotov cocktails and that was a secondary attack?”
He added: “We don’t know. I can only surmise.”
The Renault van was hired by Butt at 17.47pm on the evening of the attack, the police said. The three men drove to pick it up in a red Vauxhall Corsa — a description that matches a photograph of Butt’s car provided by a shopkeeper whose premises overlook an east London gym where the attacker worked out.
Butt, a 27-year-old Pakistan-born British citizen, and his two accomplices, Rachid Redouane, 30, who claimed to be Moroccan-Libyan, and Youssef Zaghba, a 22-year-old Italian national of Moroccan descent, were shot dead by armed police eight minutes after the first emergency call.
They were wearing fake suicide belts made of plastic water bottles wrapped in grey duct tape.
Mr Haydon said the belts were tested by explosives officers who found they were not viable.
“I can only assume they were part of trying to cause fear among people who came across them,” the senior officer said.
The men plotted their attack in an East London bedsit, according to police, who say they found items including water bottles smelling of petrol and an English-language copy of the Koran opened at a page describing martyrdom.
The atrocity has raised questions about how the British authorities monitor potential terrorists, given that concerns about two of the attackers had already been raised.
Italian authorities warned their British counterparts about Zaghba after he was stopped at Bologna airport last year during an attempt to travel to Turkey, a known arrival point for Islamists looking to join Isis in Syria. Zaghba, an Italian national of Moroccan descent, was added to a Europe-wide watchlist
Butt was a known member of banned British extremist Islamist group al-Mahajiroun, featured in a Channel 4 documentary about jihadis and had been reported to police by neighbours after attempting to persuade their children to accept his version of Islam. The gym he worked out at in Ilford was run by Sajeel Shahid, who has been named as a leading al-Mahajiroun figure in court hearings and research by anti-extremist groups.
A senior figure at a local mosque told the Financial Times that he had reported the gym to police two years ago for suspected extremist activities.
Jagruti Trivedi, who runs a beauty salon opposite the Ummah Fitness centre in Ilford — where the attackers were captured on CCTV footage shows days before they went on their rampage — said Butt had told her he was an instructor there. This matches other accounts from gym members spoken to by the FT.
A week after the London bridge attacks, Borough Market, the popular entertainment area where the trio stabbed their victims, remains cordoned off by police. Security measures have also been stepped up across London, with protective barriers installed at eight bridges, the Met said in a statement.
The police authority added they were: “continuing to work with haulage and vehicle rental companies to develop a greater understanding of potential risks and suspicious activity they should look out for.”
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