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Police in London are investigating yet another terror attack in the city, after a van ploughed into a crowd of people outside a north London mosque early Monday — leaving one dead and 10 more injured.
The suspect has since been identified by multiple news outlets as Darren Osborne, a 47-year old married father-of-four living in a Cardiff suburb who has openly voiced a hatred of Muslims.
In an interview with ITV News, Osborne’s mother said she found out about her son’s arrest via the television.
“I’m not going to defend him, but he’s my son and it’s a terrible, terrible shock,” she said. “It’s not just robbing a bank, it’s an atrocity. And at this moment in time, I can’t cope with it, I can’t. I don’t want to say anything more.”
She also described her son as being a “complex” person.
He was not known to the security services, and there is no immediate evidence that Osborne was an active member of a far right organisation.
Police have raided what is believed to be his home.
The suspect stormed the Finsbury Park area in the small hours of Monday morning.
According to multiple eyewitnesses, Osborne called out “I done my bit” and “I want to kill Muslims,” after ramming his vehicle into worshippers attending Ramadan night prayers.
He was tackled to the ground by members of the public and bravely guarded from harm by a local imam, Mohammed Mahmoud, until police took him into custody.
Mahmoud told Sky News: “Last night as many of you know we arrived on the scene within minutes after the accident and we found the assailant on the floor, he’d been restrained by around three people, and the injured and deceased brother, they were being attended to and CPR was being administered on them.”
“A group of people began to collect around the assailant and some tried to kill him with kicks or punches.”
“With God’s grace we managed to stop all forms of attack and abuse that were coming on him from every angle… We pushed people away from him before he was safely taken away by police into custody and put into the back of a van.”
A local imam, Mohammed Mahmoud, guarded the suspect from harm until police took him into custody.
Video posted on social media shows the suspect waving and blowing kisses as he is packed into a police van.
A local shopkeeper, who didn’t want to be named, described the behaviour as “cold hearted.”
“The thing that got me was that he was so calm. Even when he killed the guy he was laughing, blowing kisses. That’s cold hearted,” the witness told News.com.au.
Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu confirmed the attack on worshippers was being treated as terrorism, as did Prime Minister Theresa May.
