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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Kevin Rawlinson (now); Alexandra Topping, Matthew Weaver and Claire Phipps (earlier)

Spanish authorities decry lack of information over London Bridge missing man - live

Who were the London Bridge attackers?

What we know so far

Greater Manchester police have said that the concert bomber, Salman Abedi, may have stored items used to assemble the device in a Nissan Micra.

The Nissan Micra police believe was used by Salman Abedi, as well as a sports bag. Handout by Greater Manchester police.
The Nissan Micra police believe was used by Salman Abedi, as well as a sports bag. Handout by Greater Manchester police. Photograph: GMP handout

The force said “significant evidence” was found in the car, which has an “R” registration plate and was seized from Devell House in Rusholme on Friday. Officers appealed for anyone who recognised either it or the bag to come forward.

Det Ch Supt Russ Jackson said police were continuing to track the movements Abedi made in the days leading up to the 22 May attack.

Our investigation has also revealed that Abedi made repeated trips to and from this car between May 18 and 22 and we believe he was taking items from the car to help assemble the device. The car was sold by a previous keeper on April 13 2017.

Abedi left the country on April 15 and it is vital that we understand what happened to this car during these few days between April 13 and 15.

Family members of terror victims, including those of Lee Rigby and Jo Cox, will unite for a campaign of defiance.

Michael Haines, the brother of the aid worker David Haines, and Colin Parry, whose 12-year-old son Tim was killed by the IRA in 1993, are also among those to have filmed messages of hope and condemnation for the WeStandTogether campaign.

In the film, Brendan Cox, widower of MP Jo, speaks directly to those who seek to exploit murder to sow further division with the message: “Don’t you dare use our grief to peddle your hatred.”

Lyn Rigby, whose serviceman son was killed in Woolwich four years ago in a crime that sent shockwaves across the world, said: “We stand together to show them we’re not afraid.”

Michael Haines, who has campaigned for peace since his younger brother David was beheaded in Syria by Islamic State in 2014, said: “There are parts of our community who want to use my brother’s death to promote their ideology. Terrorists want us to carry on the hatred.”

Colin Parry called for an end to the cycle of violence, saying: “Action gets a reaction and it perpetuates the problem.”

Police investigating the Manchester attack say they have arrested a man at Heathrow airport.

In the previous three hours, the force also said it had released three of the nine men it was holding for questioning as of this afternoon. The subsequent arrest means that seven are in custody.

Australia’s federal government has confirmed that two of the country’s citizens died in Saturday night’s terror attack.

The foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, released a statement on Wednesday morning (local time) saying that two Australians were among those killed by three attackers on Saturday night.

We continue to work with the United Kingdom authorities who have asked that we await official confirmation of the identities of the victims, and for the families to be officially notified, before we release their names.

The Australian government has remained in close contact with the families who have requested privacy.

Bishop did not reveal the identities but the family of a South Australian woman, Kirsty Boden, 28, have confirmed her death. Boden, a nurse working in London, was killed as she ran towards danger in an effort to help people on London Bridge.

It is unclear whether the missing Australian nanny, Sara Zelenak, 21, is one of the victims.

Theresa May has told the Sun newspaper she would consult the intelligence agencies about what anti-terror measures they think are needed, hinting that the length of time the police can hold a suspected terrorists for questioning could be increased. The coalition government, in which she was home secretary, decreased it in 2011.

When we reduced it to 14 days, we actually allowed for legislation to enable it to be at 28 days. We said there may be circumstances where it is necessary to do this. I will listen to what they think is necessary for us to do.

Corbyn rejects May's plan to rip-up human rights laws

The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, says Theresa May’s plans would not deter further attacks.

We will always keep the law under review, but don’t believe would-be terrorists and suicide bombers will be deterred by longer sentences or restricting our rights at home.

The right response to the recent attacks is to halt the Conservative cuts and invest in our police and security services and protect our democratic values, including the Human Rights Act.

May said she wanted to place harsher restrictions on the freedom of terrorist suspects, even if there is not enough evidence to prosecute them, and would change human rights laws if they stood in her way.

She also said she wanted longer prison sentences for convicted terrorists and to make it easier to deport foreign terror suspects.

Updated

The Press Association is now reporting that Gardai have confirmed a suspect is being held at Wexford Garda station in connection with documentation linked to Redouane under the Theft and Fraud Offences Act.

That follows reports that police in Ireland had arrested a second man in the south-eastern city on Tuesday evening.

Martha Spurrier, the director of the human rights campaign group Liberty, has criticised Theresa May’s promise to change human rights laws that get in the way of her plans to restrict the freedom of terror suspects who cannot be prosecuted for lack of evidence. Spurrier has said:

If Theresa May does what she threatens, she will go down in history as the prime minister who handed terrorists their greatest victory. For cheap political points and headlines, she is willing to undermine our democracy, our freedom and our rights - the very things these violent murderers seek to attack.

The Irish public service broadcaster, RTE, has more details on those reports of a second arrest. It says the man is in his 30s and was arrested in Wexford, in the south east of Ireland, this evening.

RTE reports that, like the first arrestee, the man is “under investigation for theft and fraud offences” and that each man is “suspected of using documents and PPS numbers associated with” Redouane. A PPS number is similar to a British National Insurance number.

The reports have not been confirmed by Irish police.

Irish police make arrest - report

Sky News is reporting that Irish police investigating the background of one of the attackers, Rachid Redouane, have made a second arrest.

Theresa May has said she would change human rights laws to allow her to restrict terror suspects’ movements, even where there is insufficient evidence to prosecute them. But the Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron, has accused her of launching a “nuclear arms race” in terror laws that would reduce freedom, not terrorism.

Theresa May is simply posturing about being tough on terror as she panics that her abysmal record is coming under scrutiny.

In her years as home secretary, she was willing to offer up the police for cut after cut.

We have been here before - a kind of nuclear arms race in terror laws. It might give the appearance of action, but what the security services lack is not more power, but more resources. And responsibility for that lies squarely with Theresa May and her dereliction of duty.

All she would do is reduce freedom, not terrorism.

Relatives of Ignacio Echeverría, the 39-year-old Spaniard missing since the London Bridge attacks three days ago, have joined the Spanish government in asking British authorities why it is taking so painfully long to find out what has happened to him.

Echeverría, who is from Madrid but lives in London and works for HSBC, has been hailed as a hero for apparently using his skateboard to take on the London Bridge attackers.

He is thought to have been skateboarding in a park when he stopped to defend a woman who had been injured in the attack near Borough Market.

Friends who were with him at the time said he fell to the ground after confronting one of the assailants. He has not been heard from since.

May prepared to change human rights laws to tackle terrorism

The prime minister, Theresa May, says she will change the law so that she can place restrictions on people suspected of posing a terror threat, but against whom there is not enough evidence to bring a prosecution. Speaking to supporters on Tuesday, she said:

I mean longer prison sentences for people convicted of terrorist offences. I mean making it easier for the authorities to deport foreign terror suspects to their own countries.

And I mean doing more to restrict the freedom and the movements of terrorist suspects when we have enough evidence to know they present a threat, but not enough evidence to prosecute them in full in court.

And if human rights laws stop us from doing it, we will change those laws so we can do it.

Theresa May: We will change human rights laws to crack down on terrorism

Updated

One of the three terrorists who attacked London Bridge called his mother on Thursday in what she now believes was a “call of farewell”.

Valeria Collina told L’Espresso magazine that she only realised her son Youssef Zaghba’s intention after she learned that he was behind the terror attack that killed seven people in London.

“Even though he did not say anything in particular, I felt it from his voice,” Collina said.

“We have always tried to control his friendships, but the internet came around. Then in London he was with the wrong people. I understand why the imams don’t want to celebrate his funeral,” she said.

Italian officers came looking for Collina early on Tuesday morning, according to the report. Initially Collina, who lived in Morocco on and off for years before returning to Italy about a year and a half ago, believed they were coming to ask her more questions about her son’s disappearance, which she had reported to local police.

“Unfortunately we are not here for that. We came to tell you another thing,” they told her. “Your son is dead.”

She recalled the last conversation, in which they discussed an upcoming visit to London.

“We joked about how he would welcome me at the London airport. I was to go see him in 10 days to celebrate the end of Ramadan. He had recently bought a used car and I asked him if he would put flags on it for me,” Collina told the magazine.

She lost touch with him after that. Even immediately after the attack, she did not suspect his involvement.

“I only found out later that [the other assailants] were his friends, and I told myself that maybe he’s hiding from the authorities to not get into trouble, since in Italy he was still being monitored,” she said.

While he did talk about Syria, a country where Zaghba told his mother he believed he could live under “pure Islam”, he never spoke about fighting, she said.

She said people might blame her, but it was the internet that was to blame.

She said asking for forgiveness was futile, but she would dedicate her life to ensuring “this does not happen again”.

“We must fight the ideology of the Islamic State with true knowledge, and I will do it with all my strength.”

Franco Bortolini, a neighbour of Collina, described Zaghba as “normal”, the son of a “simple lady” who was “very respectful”.

“I would pass by the door and he would say hello, good morning and good evening. For me he was a normal person. After a while not seeing him, she [Collina] said he went to work in England,” Bortolini told the Guardian.

The news that Zaghba was involved in a terror attack at first struck Bortolini as unbelievable when he was first approached by a reporter at 2pm on Tuesday.

Bortolini had known Zaghba on and off for years, since he was a boy. Even though the family mostly lived in Morocco, they would return to Italy and spend about 20 days a year in Castello di Serravalle, a leafy village about 25km from the city of Bologna.

He did not have any particular hobbies and was not into sports, but there was nothing particularly unusual about him, he recalled. About a year and a half ago, Collina returned to Italy without her husband. Bortolini saw her taking a walk on Monday night and on Tuesday morning, but she refused to answer the door following several attempts to summon her by journalists camped outside the two-storey apartment building.

Bortolini did not recall Collina ever saying she was worried about her son or that she had noticed any changes in her behaviour. He described Collina as “quiet” and said she was not employed. She worshipped at the town’s closest mosque, in Bazzano. The last time Bortolini recalled seeing Zaghba was about six months ago.

“I can’t imagine it for anything, for anything,” he said.

Updated

Police appeal for information about potential eighth victim

Detectives from the Metropolitan police are appealing for information about Xavier Thomas, 45, a French national who has been missing since the night of the terrorist attack on London Bridge.

It is understood that Xavier is not one of the seven victims already identified by police. Witnesses suggest it is possible Xavier was struck by the attackers’ van on London Bridge and was thrown into the river.

Xavier was in London for the weekend with his girlfriend, and the couple were walking south over London Bridge at around the time the attack started. Xavier’s girlfriend Christine Delcros was seriously injured on the bridge when she was hit by the van.

Her sister, Nathalie Cros Brohan, posted online that she was on her way to London to visit Christine in hospital. She appealed for anyone with news of Thomas to get in touch, adding: “We are terribly worried.”

By Tuesday afternoon she said the family had still not had any news. “My sister has tried to remember every instant of the drama … we don’t understand why he hasn’t been found in the hospitals despite the photograph that has been circulated to help identify him. That adds to the worries we have. We fear that the collision with the terrorists’ van may have thrown him into the Thames. The more time that passes, the more we fear the worst and our hopes dwindle.”

In a statement, the Met said:

Specialist officers from the Marine Police Unit and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) have been searching the river since the night of the attack.

If anyone was on London Bridge at the time of the attack and has not yet spoken to police or has seen Xavier since 3 June, then please contact police on 0800 0961 233.

Specially trained family liaison officers have been deployed to support the families of all those people that police believe died in the attack. Families continue to be updated on both the coronial process and the police investigation.

Formal identification procedures will take place over the coming days. This happens after police have proved to an evidential standard, such as DNA or fingerprints.

Updated

A teenager who went to the same gym as Khuram Butt has said he was a “quiet guy” and seemed like the “last person” to carry out an attack, the Press Association reports.

The Ummah Fitness Centre in Ilford, east London, issued a statement saying Butt trained there “occasionally” but they “do not know him well, nor did we see anything of concern”.

Abdullah Mohamed, 18, said he had sparred with Butt, who, he said would also sometimes sit on the front desk and take payment.

Mohamed identified Butt from a police-issue mugshot and said:

I saw him here a few times. He just used to tell us the rules about the gym. He was a quiet guy. He did a little bit of boxing. He used to just help out little kids, like 10-, 12-year-olds when they used to come over, and he sparred with us once or twice.

Asked if Butt seemed to be training in preparation for an attack, Mohamed said there was “nothing” to suggest as much.

It was quite shocking because I found out there someone in this gym was involved two days ago, but I didn’t know who he was or his name or anything like that.

I thought, yeah OK, someone who was in the gym, but I never expected him because when I saw his face it was really shocking. He’s a quiet, small, skinny guy. [He was] the last person to do something dangerous or physical.

Ahmed Alassi, 17, who visited the gym with Mohamed, said Butt was religious but had not tried to impose his views, even interacting with other gym users of different faiths.

He was a nice guy, quite religious. He was humble, he didn’t talk much. Just once or twice he told us to come pray, but apart from that …

Mohamed added:

We used to pray inside the gym around 10.30pm because it’s Ramadan. He never asked us like that, he just said it out loud for everyone in the gym if they wanted to pray.

Both teenagers said they had not seen Butt’s accomplices at the gym.

Updated

The Press Association is reporting more details of the London Bridge attacker Rachid Redouane.

Terrorist Rachid Redouane married a British woman, Charisse Ann O’Leary, in November 2012 and gave an address in Rathmines, Dublin.

He left the country at some point and is believed to have lived in Ireland again in 2015.

Redouane was never under surveillance by Irish authorities, and the justice minister, Frances Fitzgerald, urged caution over speculating about his movements as the terror investigation continues.

Fitzgerald said they could not comment on the movements of people who could have been involved in the attack. She sought to assure the public that “everything required is being done”.

PA continues:

Rachid Redouane is believed by members of the Moroccan community to be a bogus name as it is a combination of two common first names.

The killer gave the date of birth of 31 July 1986 for his marriage certificate in Ireland, but according to the Met he also used an alias, Rachid Elkhdar, and the later birthday of 31 July 1991.

Redouane was described on his marriage certificate as a pastry chef.

Ireland’s terror threat level states that an incident is possible but unlikely and there is no specific information of a threat from international terrorism.

Fitzgerald defended Ireland’s ability to deal with a terrorist attack after the level of training and preparations for frontline responders was criticised. She said:

The gardai have in place the necessary operational measures in terms of intelligence, a well-trained and equipped special intervention capability and other national support resources. They are supported in this, as needed, by the considerable skills and resources of the defence forces.

The necessary resources and supports are being given to An Garda Síochána.

The PA report continues:

Meanwhile, gardai were preparing a case file after a man was arrested and later released without charge over the discovery of ID documents in Rachid Redouane’s name in Limerick.

The director of public prosecutions will be asked to assess if he should be charged in relation to offences under theft and fraud laws, a spokesman said.

Redouane is known to have lived in Ireland at different times over the last few years. He married O’Leary at the office of the Civil Registration Service at Sir Patrick Dun’s hospital in Dublin.

It is not clear when he came to the republic or how long he stayed but it is believed he used Irish jurisdiction to get a European Union permit which allowed him to be in the UK. He is also thought to have travelled to Morocco after leaving Ireland before settling in the UK.

He returned to Ireland in 2015, again for an unknown length of time, but the taoiseach, Enda Kenny, said he was not one of a small number of radicals under surveillance in Ireland.

An Irish security source described the killer as having “extensive immigration history related to the UK”.

Updated

Neighbours near the Ilford address that was raided in the early hours of Tuesday morning say the property belonged to a “nice and quiet” woman and her child.

Neighbours said unarmed officers arrived at the house in Fairfield Road, Ilford, at around 1am on Tuesday.

According to residents, a woman and child of Pakistani heritage had rented the property, which is half a mile from the home of one of the attackers, Khuram Butt. Police say no one was arrested following the raid.

Neighbour Foyez Rahman, 55, said: “There was a woman and child living there who were nice and quiet … they moved in maybe a year ago.”

None of the residents the Guardian spoke to recognised the pictures of the three attackers.

Updated

The anti-extremism organisation the Quilliam Foundation has said it reported the London Bridge attacker Khuram Butt to counter-terrorism authorities almost a year ago.

Butt was involved in a “violent scuffle” with the foundation’s Dr Usama Hasan at a July 2016 event to mark Eid, the end of Ramadan. The organisation said that after reporting Butt they were “informed that Butt was already known to intelligence”.

Butt, who attended the event with his wife and young son, approached Hasan, who was with his family, and accused him of being an apostate who took “government money to spy on Muslims”.

He also attacked him for supporting gay marriage and the idea that “we come from apes”.

A scuffle broke out and Butt lunged twice at Hassan, said the organisation.

Quilliam’s chief executive, Haras Rafiq, said its report should have been taken more seriously as it came from a counter-terrorism group rather than a member of the public.

He said:

Although the police and security services have done a great job of keeping us safe in the past and are under-resourced against the sheer volume of the threat, on this instance, there are questions to be answered. It’s one thing when someone from the general public reports an individual as a violent extremist, but when experienced experts who are involved in deradicalizing jihadists – as Dr Hasan is – report them, a caution is not enough.

Updated

The Muslim community in Barking had highlighted concerns about the London Bridge attacker Khuram Shazad Butt, who is thought to have once attended the Jabir Bin Zayd Islamic Centre in Barking, according to a community leader.

Khuram Shazad Butt.
Khuram Shazad Butt.

Ash Siddique, the secretary of al-Madina mosque in Barking, which is close to centre, said concerns were raised about Butt on three occasions, the Press Association reported. He said:

What’s emerging is that on three occasions the community highlighted concerns about this individual. He was on tape in a documentary made by Channel 4 several years ago

So those concerns I think were in the public domain and highlighted as they should have been. The failings were not on the part of the community - the community has done what it is supposed to do.

Siddique said Muslim women in Barking had been the target of physical and verbal abuse since the London Bridge attacks; one woman had been grabbed around the throat at a bus stop, he said.

I would not describe it as a backlash. We’ve had a number of incidents where ladies coming to the mosque have been attacked. One lady was at the bus stop and she was grabbed around the throat. We’ve reported that matter to the police.

We’ve had a number of ladies who have been verbally abused and a number of ladies who have been spat on. We’ve had a couple of telephone calls, physical threats - ‘we are going to attack you’ and that sort of thing.

Perhaps that’s to be expected after a major event like this but it’s still disconcerting for those individuals involved. To be honest with you, it’s par for the course of being a Muslim in the UK today.


Al-Madina mosque is near to the Jabir Bin Zayd Islamic Centre that Butt was thought to have once attended. Siddique said he did not believe Butt had visited the mosque.

As far as I’m aware, no. To be honest with you, sometimes we have 1,000 people here so he could have come here but as far as we know, I’ve asked some of my colleagues and the people that work here and nobody seems to recognise him.

Siddique said he understood police and security services had an “enormously difficult job” and that terrorists “just need to get lucky once”.

The east London community had “felt terrorism” following the death of Shahara Islam, 20, a bank cashier from Plaistow, who was killed in the 7/7 bombings after boarding the number 30 bus.

It’s a community that feels that it is under siege because in 7/7 when the bombings went off on the trains, we lost a daughter. So we’ve felt terrorism and the effects of terrorism in this community first-hand and at the same time when this happens, you get the finger pointed at you.

Asked what Theresa May meant when she said during a speech in Downing Street that there had been “too much tolerance of extremism”, he said:

I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know. It does make me worry because she said ‘enough is enough’. What more are we going to do? As a community, we are always asked the question when this sort of thing happens. What has the Muslim community done?’. Well, I’ll tell you what the Muslim community did on this occasion. People in the Muslim community told the authorities that this individual was of concern. We did our part.

Updated

Southwark cathedral dean says community in deep shock

Southwark cathedral remains inaccessible within the police cordon in the London Bridge/Borough area while officers continue to collect forensic evidence.

“We don’t know when we’ll be able to get back in; we can’t make any definite plans at the moment,” Andrew Nunn, the cathedral’s dean, told the Guardian.

Southwark cathedral.
Southwark cathedral. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

He and colleagues spent this morning talking to traders and small businesses who normally operate in Borough market. “People who were working on Saturday night are still shocked and upset. Some are concerned because they are small businesses which can’t trade,” said Nunn.

“There are residents who still can’t get to their homes, they are displaced. The personal impact of this has been different to Westminster in many way, because this attack took place in the heart of a very real and mixed community. Emotions are running very high.”

The cathedral has been holding its regular daily services in local churches outside the cordon. “You can minister on the streets, but you can’t welcome people in. The cathedral has been here for 1,400 years, and the market for 1,000 years, so we’re deeply embedded in the area. The cathedral is normally a focal point. It is also our workplace and the tool of our trade.”

Nunn and his colleagues are co-operating with the police and fully understand the need for the cordon, he said. “But of course we want to re-inhabit the space and bring it back to normality. We want to get our doors open again.”

Updated

French police say the incident at Notre Dame is “under control”.

They tweeted: “An officer was injured, the accused was neutralised and taken to hospital.”

People who were initially kept inside the cathedral are now being allowed to leave after checks.

Updated

Italian counter-terrorist agencies play down information sharing

Italian counter-terrorist agencies are playing down the extent to which they shared information with British security and police about one of the London Bridge attacker, Youssef Zaghba.

If the security services had been alerted by the Italians and failed to act on the information, it would have been a major embarrassment to be added to the list of missed opportunities to have prevented the attack. The UK security services are to conduct an inquiry into their handling of the London attack.

According to Italian newspaper report, quoting Italian intelligence sources, he was stopped at Bologna airport last year bound for Syria via Turkey and told officials: “I am going to be a terrorist.” The newspapers said the information had been shared with the British and that he had been placed on a ‘watchlist’.

An Italian intelligence anti-terrorism office told the Guardian the country’s anti-terrorism office based in Rome sent an alert to MI5, the UK’s domestic intelligence agency. This could have been done by directly sending a dossier or placing Zaghba’s name on a European-wide intelligence-sharing database of potential jihadis.

The UK security services, which includes counter-terrorism police and the intelligence agencies, have found no such alert or direct communication and are puzzled by the description ‘watchlist’. Although one of the three attackers was on a list of 23,000 subjects of interest, Zaghba was not on it.

An Italian diplomatic source, seeking to clear up the apparent discrepancy between the Italian press accounts and the UK security services, said Zaghba, who had been living in Casablanca until March 2016 before returning to Italy, had been stopped during a routine search and found to have jihadi material.

The source said that the information had been uploaded onto a European database, one to which several names a day were sent, highlighting Zaghba as a subject of risk of being radicalised.

Updated

Paris police shoot 'lone attacker with hammer' at Notre Dame cathedral

BFMTV are reporting that the assailant attacked two police officers and that the reported explosions appear to have been gunshots fired at the attacker, who is said to be injured in the throat.

Sky News are reporting that the attacker is “inert” on the floor, though they may have been told to remain still.

The area has been cordoned off while police carry out security checks. But the scene is currently calm and police have confirmed that there was one lone attacker with a hammer.

Sky News spoke to one tourist, Robbie who was inside the cathedral when the incident happened.

He said: “Everyone is calm, everyone is sat down, an announcement right now is asking everyone to stay calm until we know what is happening outside.

He said he had been prevented from leaving the cathedral because of the incident.

“A man I spoke to said he’d run inside because he’d heard gunshots and everyone ran in at the same time,” he said.

Updated

Contacted by FranceInfo, journalist David Rahul Métreau, who was at the scene, said he heard two detonations that provoked panic in the crowds near the cathedral. The police officer who was attacked responded by firing on the man, who is lying on the ground injured, but reportedly still alive.

The police officer is believed to be also injured, but alive.

Updated

More reports from Paris suggesting a policeman was attacked by a hammer and responded with gunfire, this can’t be verified for the moment. Some tweets have come out saying people are trapped in the cathedral.

It is understood that the assailant has been shot, but is not dead.

Updated

Reports of gunfire and panic at Paris's Notre Dame cathedral

We are hearing reports of gunfire and panic at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Police are responding.

France TV Info is quoting a police source as saying a policeman was attacked and has responded. Police are asking people not to go to the area.

We will have more details as soon as possible.

French media have reported that 27-year-old Alexandre Pigeard, from Colleville-Montgomery, near Caen in Calvados, was one of the seven people killed.

Vincent Le Berre, the manager of Boro Bistro, where Alexandre worked, said: “One of the attackers got onto the roof of the bar and jumped on the parasol on the terrace, wounding one of my colleagues,” he told the Brittany news outlet Le Télégramme.

“He immediately attacked. A client was killed. I managed to escape, but my friend Alexandre did not have the chance. He was stabbed in the neck with a knife.”

Le Berre’s mother, who runs a bar in Brittany, said her son had taken part in a training course advising what to do in case of a terrorist attack two days before the events at London Bridge. He had managed to get 40 people to safety at the moment of the attack, she said.

French media reported that Alexandre had been living in London for two and a half years, after moving from Colleville-Montgomery, a small town nestled on the banks of the River Orne between Caen and Ouistreham. A music fan, he was part of an electronic music collective, and organised gigs for Cargo, a Caen music venue, and the Nordik Impakt electronic music festival.

On Monday the mayor of Colleville-Montgomery, Frédéric Loinard, confirmed Alexandre had been caught up in the attack. A member of the community said [Pigeard] “loved life”, reported La Manche Libre.

Three of those killed have been named as Australian Kirsty Boden, a nurse at Guy’s hospital; Canadian Christine Archibald; and Londoner James McMullan. Fears are growing for missing Spaniard Ignacio Echeverría and 21-year-old Australian Sara Zelenak. Spain has urged the UK to speed up the formal identification process.

Updated

What we know so far

  • Police have identified the third attacker as Moroccan-Italian Youssef Zaghba. The 22-year-old was not subject of MI5 interest. But reports in the Italian media said Zaghba was stopped en route to Syria last year and that the Italian intelligence services informed their British counterparts about his movements.
  • MI5 will review its handling of the attack, Theresa May has said, after it emerged that at least two of the attackers were known to the British security services. “MI5 and the police have already said they would be reviewing how they dealt with Manchester and I would expect them to do exactly the same in relation to London Bridge,” she said.
  • Zaghba reportedly said “I’m going to be a terrorist”, before being stopped by Italian police at Bologna airport. Propaganda videos and religious sermons found on his phone confirmed his wish to join Islamic State. An Italian official confirmed to the Guardian that Italian authorities alerted their British counterparts when Zaghba moved to London.
  • The two other attackers were named on Monday as Khuram Butt and Rachid Redouane. Scotland Yard is appealing for information about all three men.
  • Officials confirmed that Butt, 27, who was born in Pakistan but brought up in the UK, was known to police and had been investigated in 2015. He had appeared in a Channel 4 documentary, The Jihadis Next Door, and had been reported to the anti-terrorism hotline for extremism. Butt was also linked to al-Muhajiroun, the banned extremist group whose leader, Anjem Choudary, was jailed last year for encouraging support for Islamic State.
  • Transport for London has confirmed that Butt worked as a trainee customer services assistant for six months last year. One colleague claimed that as part of the training programme he was headquartered at London Bridge station and also worked at Westminster and Canada Water stations.
  • Police investigating the attack have arrested another man in Barking. The 27-year-old is being held under the Terrorism Act. It is understood the man was taken from the block of flats where one of the attackers, Khuram Butt, lived. Twelve people – seven women and five men – who were arrested at two properties in Barking on Sunday were released without charge on Monday.
  • Redouane, 30, who reportedly claimed to be Moroccan and Libyan, was not known to police or MI5. Police in Ireland arrested a man in Limerick on Monday night after receiving an alert from officers investigating the London Bridge attacks
  • The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, has urged the police and security services to respond questions about they knew about Khuram Butt. He said: “I’m sure the police will look into what they knew, what they could have done, what they did do and if anything could have been done differently.”
  • A minute’s silence has been observed across the UK for the seven victims of the attack. England cricketers paused their game against New Zealand in Cardiff as mark of respect.
  • Three of those killed have been named as Australian Kirsty Boden, a nurse at Guy’s hospital, Canadian Christine Archibald, and Londoner James McMullan. A French citizen, as yet unidentified, is also known to have died.
  • Fears are growing for missing Spaniard Ignacio Echeverría and 21-year-old Australian Sara Zelenak. Spain has urged the UK to speed up the formal identification process.
  • The number of people in critical care after the attack has fallen to 15. Four of the injured who have been treated in hospital since Saturday have been discharged – the first casualties to be allowed home.

Updated

15 injured people in critical care

Four of the injured who have been treated in hospital since Saturday night now been discharged – the first casualties to be allowed home – and a further three are no longer receiving critical care, NHS England has said.

In their latest update on the condition and location of casualties, NHS England said that 32 people were being treated at five different hospitals.

The number of people in critical care, which fell yesterday from 21 to 18, has fallen again to 15.

Updated

Zaghba reportedly said 'I'm going to be a terrorist'

When asked why he was travelling to Turkey in 2016, Youssef Zaghba said “I’m going to be a terrorist,” the Italian daily La Repubblica reports.

Security staff at Bologna airport noticed his agitation when he approached the check-in desk for a flight to Istanbul, it said.

When asked about the reasons of his journey, he replied bluntly: “I’m going to be terrorist,” it said. Police were called and he was prevented from flying.

Earlier the paper reported that a complete dossier would have been forwarded to MI5 in April 2016 after he travelled to the UK.

An Italian official confirmed to the Guardian that Italian authorities alerted their British counterparts when Zaghba moved to London.

Updated

NHS England’s chief nurse, Prof Jane Cummings, has paid tribute to Kirsty Boden, the NHS nurse killed in the London Bridge attacks.

The Australian, who worked at Guy’s hospital just beside London Bridge station, “epitomised the values of nursing, of public service and the compassion we associate with the NHS”, Cummings said.

Her statement said:

I am deeply saddened to hear that Kirsty Boden has been named as a victim of Saturday’s terrorist atrocity. My thoughts are with Kirsty’s family and friends, as well as her colleagues at Guy’s hospital and the rest of the trust, through this unimaginably difficult time.

The people responsible for this heinous act showed a callous and indiscriminate disregard for human life. In contrast, Kirsty truly epitomised the values of nursing, of public service and the compassion we associate with the NHS.

It’s really important that the hospitals are able to prioritise caring for their patients and staff, and I would urge everyone to respect this over the coming days.”

Updated

Police in Ireland arrested a man on Monday night after receiving an alert from officers investigating the London Bridge attacks.

The man, a Moroccan national, was detained at an address in Limerick where detectives later recovered a number of documents in the name of Rachid Redouane, one of the three attackers.

Redouane had been living in both Dublin and east London prior to Saturday night’s attack.

A reporter for the Irish Star claims one of the attackers, Rachid Redouane, lived in a terraced house in Dublin in 2012. Irish identity papers were found on Redouane when he was killed after the attack.

Updated

A senior journalist at the rightwing US news site Breitbart News has been sacked for anti-Muslim tweets sent after Saturday’s attack in London, the New York Times reports.

News editor Katie McHugh claims she was fired for telling the truth.

After the attack, McHugh tweeted: “There would be no deadly terror attacks in the U.K. if Muslims didn’t live there.”

She has refused to delete the tweet or apologise and has used comments by Donald Trump in her defence.

On a crowdfunding page, she said: “I said nothing wrong. As President Donald Trump says, if we don’t get smart, it will only get worse.”

Updated

Do security services need new powers or extra resources? Our home affairs editor Alan Travis look at options including Tpims, tagging and mass surveillance.

Updated

An Italian official has confirmed to the Guardian that Italian authorities alerted their British counterparts when Youssef Zaghba moved to London after he was stopped from travelling to Syria.

He was stopped at Marconi airport in Bologna on 15 March 2016 travelling with only a backpack and a one-way ticket to Istanbul, according to Corriere della Serra. He had told his mother he was going to Rome, and he became agitated as soon as he was stopped and his passport and mobile were impounded. He had video and images of religious content on his phone, but nothing significant in terms of jihadi fundamentalism, the paper reported.

He was interrogated but was ultimately released. An Italian official confirmed to the Guardian that Italian authorities alerted their British counterparts when Zaghba moved to London.

According to another Italian newspaper, La Repubblica, the material on his phone included propaganda videos and religious sermons that confirmed his wish to join Islamic State.

The paper reported that a review court, known as the tribunale del riesame, decided there was insufficient evidence of terrorism to charge him, but the Italian security services sent an alert to London with the information gathered from the mobile phone and from other checks carried out in Bologna, understood to have included searches of his mother’s home. The paper reported that a complete dossier would have been forwarded to MI5 in April 2016.

It also said that because he had Italian citizenship he could not be deported for suspected jihadi values.

Updated

The transport and travel trade industries union, the TSSA, has said the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, must be held to account for “the serious lapse in security procedures” on the tube during his tenure as mayor of London, after it was reported that one of the London Bridge killers was employed as a Transport for London trainee for six months last year.

The TSSA general secretary, Manuel Cortes, said applying to be a customer service assistant for TFL should take 4-6 months. The application would normally include two interviews, suitability tests and the application of security protocols.

So this London Bridge killer will have applied for his position between October and December 2015 at the same time Boris was bludgeoning through nearly a 1,000 job cuts on the tube – which would downgrade safety procedure on the tube and take out all all 242 staff in the specialist CCTV monitoring unit.

But downgrading the security of London was part of a wider political agenda. In 2010 in London there were 4,607 PCSOs [police community support officers], and today there are 1,487 – that is a 68% cut thanks to Tory mayor Boris and Tory home secretary [Theresa] May.

Like Theresa May, Boris neither valued the opinion of British Transport Police, London’s Met police nor tube union warnings that his actions would imperil security.

Updated

Theresa May expects security service review

Theresa May has said she expects police and security services to launch a review after three terrorists slipped through the net to launch the devastating attack at London Bridge, PA reports.

The prime minister sidestepped questions over whether Boris Johnson was right to say the public would be asking questions about how the attackers were missed.

Security services have come under pressure after it emerged one of the attackers, Khuram Butt, 27, had been reported to the anti-terror hotline in 2015.

Asked about the foreign secretary’s comments, May told Sky News: “I absolutely recognise people’s concerns.”

During a visit to Bangor, north Wales, the PM said a review had been launched after the Manchester bombing and she expected the same process to be launched following Saturday’s rampage, when seven people were killed.

“MI5 and the police have already said they would be reviewing how they dealt with Manchester and I would expect them to do exactly the same in relation to London Bridge,” she said.

“What the government needs to do, and what the government that comes in after Thursday’s election needs to be willing to do, is to give more powers to the police and security service when they need them, needs to deal with this issue of terrorism and extremism online and also needs to be able to call out extremism here in the United Kingdom.”

Updated

The head of the Ramadham Foundation, a community cohesion campaign, says he was verbally abused by one of the London Bridge attackers, Khuram Butt.

The group’s chief executive, Mohammed Shafiq, said the incident was reported to the police and raised further questions for the authorities.

In a statement, he said:

“I was verbally assaulted by Khuram Butt, one of the London Bridge killers, the day after the brutal murder of Lee Rigby in May 2013. This took place on College Green, Westminster. Khuram Butt was with Anjem Choudhury, the well-known extremist and terrorist sympathiser.

Khuram Butt called me a ‘murtad’, which means traitor in Arabic, and accused me of being a government stooge when I confronted Anjem Choudhury about him supporting terrorism and my public campaign against Lee Rigby’s murder.

The police turned up and Anjum, Khuram Butt and two other men were escorted away towards Millbank and I stayed in College Green.

It is clear that Anjem Choudhury and his band of terrorist sympathisers were known to the police for many years. Many of us in the British Muslim community have been demanding action against these extremists to no avail. I am not surprised that Khuram Butt carried out the terrorist attack and there are serious questions for the authorities.

As in the Manchester terrorist attack, members of the Muslim community are reporting their suspicions about potential extremists which reinforces the strong links between the Muslim community and the police.

What is clear that Anjem Choudhury, Khuram Butt and their group of terrorist sympathisers have been known to authorities and nothing was done for years.

I call for an immediate investigation into what the police knew, what was done and why action was not taken against them.”

Updated

Glastonbury festival has announced extra security measures following the attacks in Manchester and Borough Market, urging festival-goers to pack as little as possible.

All those attending the festival in Somerset’s Worthy Farm in two weeks will be subject to extra searches of their vehicles and bags as they enter.

The organisers warned that the queues would be longer and the entrance would be slower as a result of the tightened security measures. More than 200,000 people will attend the festival at the end of June, which is headlined by Radiohead, Foo Fighters and Ed Sheeran.

“We encourage you to pack as light as you can,” said an announcement on the festival website. “The less you bring, the quicker you’ll get through the gates. As a general rule, we would ask you to only bring as much as you can carry yourself.”

Those with large luggage and trolleys will undergo separate searches, and organisers asked that everything brought on to the site is labelled with a name and mobile number.

They added: “Please think: do you really need that camping chair? Can you manage without that extra food and drink? Remember, you can buy pretty much anything you need here on site.”

Updated

Kirsty Boden
Kirsty Boden Photograph: Metropolitan Police/AP

Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS foundation trust in London has confirmed that Kirsty Boden, the Australian nurse killed on Saturday, worked at its hospitals and hailed her as “one in a million” and “one of our own”.

“It is with great sadness that we can confirm that a member of Guy’s and St Thomas’ staff tragically died during the London Bridge terror attack on Saturday 3 June”, the trust said in a statement.

“Kirsty Boden, 28, who was originally from Australia, worked as a staff nurse in theatres recovery at Guy’s hospital. Her next of kin, as well as staff colleagues, have been informed. We are offering support to staff at this extremely difficult and distressing time.”

Dame Eileen Sills, the trust’s chief nurse, said: “As the chief nurse of Guy’s and St Thomas’, I cannot put into words how sad I am that we have lost one of our own.

“Kirsty was an outstanding nurse and a hugely valued member of the staff team in theatres recovery, described by her colleagues as ‘one in a million’ who always went the extra mile for the patients in her care.

“Our thoughts at this time are with her family, her loved ones and our staff who have lost a dear friend and colleague.”

It is still unclear exactly how Boden died in the attacks.

Updated

Isis videos reportedly found on Zaghba's phone

Isis videos were found on Youssef Zaghba’s phone when it was confiscated in March, according to the Italian daily Repubblica.

The Tribunale del Riesame, an Italian review court, decided there was insufficient evidence of terrorism to charge him, the paper reported.

As Zaghba had Italian citizenship he couldn’t be deported for suspected jihadi sympathies, it pointed out.

The Italian security services said they shared information about Zaghba with British intelligence and would have forwarded a dossier on him in April 2016 after he was stopped from flying to Turkey.

A police officer reads a paper outside an address at Elizabeth Fry Flats in Barking
A police officer reads a paper outside an address at Elizabeth Fry Flats in Barking Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA

More on the arrest of 13th person in the investigation.

The 27-year-old man was detained at 8.05am in Barking, the Metropolitan police said in statement.

It is understand the man was taken from the block of flats where one of the attackers, Khuram Butt, lived.

Butt lived on the ground floor of Elizabeth Fry Apartments with his wife and two young children.

“A search warrant is being executed at an address in Barking. Enquiries ongoing,” the Met said.

Updated

Corriere Della Sera’s report that the British authorities were informed that Zaghba had been stopped at Bologna airport in March 2016 as he tried to board a flight on his way to Syria raises the question of what action the Home Office took on his return to Britain.

The Home Office has powers to block foreign nationals who have travelled to fight in Syria and Iraq from travelling to the UK “on the basis of the threat they pose”.

At the very least he should have been placed on a watchlist preventing him from boarding an aircraft to or from the UK. The Home Office declined to comment on these issues “while an investigation is ongoing”.

Scotland Yard said he was “not a police or MI5 subject of interest”.

Updated

Staff at the European Union building in Brussels took part in the minute’s silence for the victims of the attack, according to the president of the European council, Donald Tusk.

Here’s more on what we know about the third attacker, Youssef Zaghba:

Updated

What we know so far

  • Police have identified the third attacker as Moroccan-Italian Youssef Zaghba. The 22-year-old was not subject of MI5 interest. But reports in the Italian media said Zaghba was stopped en route to Syria last year and that the Italian intelligence services informed their British counterparts about his movements.
  • The two other attackers were named on Monday as Khuram Butt and Rachid Redouane. Scotland Yard is appealing for information about all three men.
  • Officials confirmed that Butt, 27, who was born in Pakistan but brought up in the UK, was known to police and had been investigated in 2015. He had appeared in a Channel 4 documentary, The Jihadis Next Door, and had been reported to the anti-terrorism hotline for extremism. Butt was also linked to al-Muhajiroun, the banned extremist group whose leader, Anjem Choudary, was jailed last year for encouraging support for Islamic State.
  • Transport for London has confirmed that Butt worked as trainee customer services assistant for six months last year. One colleague claimed that as part of the training programme he was headquartered at London Bridge station and also worked at Westminster and Canada Water stations.
  • Police investigating the attack have arrested another man in Barking. The 27-year-old is being held under the Terrorism Act. Twelve people – seven women and five men – who were arrested at two properties in Barking on Sunday were released without charge on Monday.
  • Redouane, 30, who reportedly claimed to be Moroccan and Libyan, was not known to police or MI5.
  • The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, has urged the police and security services to respond questions about they knew about Khuram Butt. He said: “I’m sure the police will look into what they knew, what they could have done, what they did do and if anything could have been done differently.”
  • A minute’s silence has been observed across the UK for the seven victims of the attack. England cricketers paused their game against New Zealand in Cardiff as mark of respect.
  • Three of those killed have been named as Australian Kirsty Boden, Canadian Christine Archibald, and Londoner James McMullan. A French citizen, as yet unidentified, is also known to have died.
  • Fears are growing for missing Spaniard Ignacio Echeverría and 21-year-old Australian Sara Zelenak. Spain has urged the UK to speed up the formal identification process.
  • There are 36 people still being treated in hospital for their injuries; 18 of them are in critical care.
  • A book of condolence for the victims opened today at 9am at Southwark council headquarters in Tooley Street; it will move to Southwark Cathedral once the police cordon around the site of the Borough Market attack is lifted.

Updated

The Met is appealing for information from anyone who knew the three attackers: Khuram Butt, Rachid Redouane and Youssef Zaghba.

Man arrested in Barking

The Met also announced that detectives investigating the attack arrested a man at an address in Barking on Tuesday morning. The 27-year-old man was arrested under the Terrorism Act just after 8am. A search warrant is being executed at an address in Barking.

Twelve other people arrested as part of the investigation have been released without charge.

Updated

Youssef Zaghba confirmed as third attacker

Formal identification is yet to take place but detectives believe the third attacker is 22-year-old Youssef Zaghba
Formal identification is yet to take place but detectives believe the third attacker is 22-year-old Youssef Zaghba. Photograph: Metropolitan Police

The Met’s counter-terrorism command has released the name and photograph of the third attacker.

While formal identification is yet to take place, detectives believe he is 22-year-old Youssef Zaghba, from east London. The deceased’s family have been informed. He is believed to be an Italian national of Moroccan descent. He was not a police or MI5 subject of interest.

Updated

More on reports about the third attacker Youssef Zaghba ...

Corriere della Sera reported that he was stopped by Italian authorities in an airport in Bologna in March 2016 as he tried to board a flight to Turkey and then travel to Syria.

Zaghba’s mother is Italian and his father is Moroccan, the paper said. The report could not immediately be confirmed by the Guardian.

The paper reported that Italian authorities alerted British and Moroccan authorities about his frequent trips.

Zaghba’s parents reportedly lived in Morocco but then separated, at which point his mother settled in Bologna. In March 2016, the paper reported, Zaghba was charged with international terrorism by Italian authorities, but the charge was later dropped. He was still considered a “risk”, the paper alleged.

Zaghba was traveling with just a backpack and a one-way ticket to Istanbul at the time he was stopped and detained, the newspaper said. His mobile phone contained religious images but nothing that was seen as particularly significant.

Updated

People near the scene of the recent attack observe a minute’s silence in tribute to the victims of the attack at London Bridge and Borough Market
People near the scene of the recent attack observe a minute’s silence in tribute to the victims of the attack at London Bridge and Borough Market Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

Office workers and commuters gathered in the rain by a huge pile of flowers on the corner of Borough High Street and London Bridge at 11 to hold a minute’s silence in honour of the victims of the attack.

A line of unarmed police in hi-vis jackets stood with their hands behind their backs; there has been no sign of armed police in the area all morning. One woman stood at the front of the crowd, overcome by tears. The friend she was with said she knew one of the victims, but neither wanted to speak to the media.

Layla Begum, 34, a finance assistant from Barking who works in an office block overlooking the Barrowboy and Banker pub, laid a bunch of flowers on the pile. “I wanted to show my love to all the victims. It makes me feel very emotional to speak about it. It happened so close to where I work – it feels very strange and scary,” she said.

She said she had been disconcerted to hear about raids near her home in Barking. “I’m close to it both at work and just 10 minutes from my home. It’s just so disgusting, particularly that this was done in the name of Allah. They shouldn’t have done it.”

She said she hoped it didn’t prompt a rise in Islamophobia. “I hope most people are more sensible than that.”

Friends of missing French chef Sébastien Bélanger had stuck an appeal for help finding him on the bus stop, at the south end of London Bridge. “Our friend Sébastien is missing since the attack in London Bridge. Please contact us if you have any useful information,” the poster read, above a picture of the chef.

Chris Jones, who was in the Black and Blue restaurant on Saturday night and witnessed the attack, had returned to try to collect his mobile phones and his girlfriend’s coat, abandoned when they fled the scene. He also wanted to pay his restaurant bill. Police took his details but were not allowing anyone back to the market area, and told him to wait in a cafe until there were further instructions about how he could get his belongings back.

He said he was still struggling to process what happened. Originally from Kent but currently living in Singapore, working as a business development manager, he said he was in London on holiday with his girlfriend, and had wanted to show her Borough Market. Ex-military, he has spent time in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said he was used to high-stress situations, but this one had taken him by surprise. “In Iraq, you know these things are going to happen, people are trying to kill you, but here it is just shocking.”

To begin with he thought it was a pub brawl. “There was a commotion, lots of heads turned. I thought it was a bar fight - I saw a few things being thrown. I thought it was football hooligans, but then people were getting panicked.” He saw two of the attackers through the glass window of the restaurant, and saw one person come running into the restaurant, with a slashed to his ear and what may have been a cut to his neck, shouting “Someone fucking help me.”

Reading about the attackers in the papers this morning, he was finding it hard to understand their motivation. “These are family guys, with children, wives - they are not loners, living on fringes of society, they have people who love them. It’s hard to understand.”

He wasn’t interested in the political debate around who was to blame. “People are looking for someone to blame – but the only people to blame are the three assholes who did this, and maybe the people who radicalised them online.”

Third victim named

The family of Kirsty Boden, a 28-year-old from Australia, has confirmed that she was one of the seven victims to be killed in the attack.

Boden, from Loxton, South Australia, was working as a health professional in London, according to 9 News Australia.

Her family said she was killed while going to the aid of others.

A family statement said: “As she ran towards danger, in an effort to help people on the bridge, Kirsty sadly lost her life. We are so proud of Kirsty’s brave actions, which demonstrate how selfless, caring and heroic she was, not only on that night, but throughout all of her life.”

Two other victims confirmed to have been killed were James McMullan, a 32-year-old from London, and 30-year-old Canadian Christine Archibald.

Updated

Third attacker named in the Italian media

The third London Bridge attacker has been named in the Italian media as Moroccan-born Youssef Zaghba who was stopped by the authorities in Bologna last year when he was en route to Syria.

The Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera says the Italian intelligence services reported Youssef’s movements to their British counterparts.

The Metropolitan police have not named the third attacker. It has refused to confirm his name.

Updated

Minute's silence observed across UK

A minute’s silence has been held across the UK in memory of the seven people who died in Saturday’s attack.

Police officers observe the minute’s silence at London Bridge Station.
Police officers observe the minute’s silence at London Bridge Station. Photograph: Marko Djurica/Reuters

England cricketers were to pause their game against New Zealand in Cardiff as mark of respect.

Arrangements were made for the standing umpire to step away from the crease at 11am, before an announcement over the public address system, the Standard reports.

The silence was to be marked at all government buildings. Flags will remain at half-mast in Whitehall until Tuesday evening.

UK embassies across the world were to observe the minute’s silence.

Where possible emergency services would also be taking part.

Updated

A mosque in the west of Ireland was attacked last night with rocks thrown through windows while members of Ahmadi Muslim sect were worshipping inside.

Imam Ibrahim Ahmad Noonan of the Masjid Maryam mosque in Galway said those praying inside at the time were “terrified”. He said the attack too place at about 11.20pm last night during evening prayers.

Noonan said he believed the mosque had been targeted as a direct result of the London attack on Saturday.

One of the first organisations to condemn the attack on the Galway mosque was Atheist Ireland, which has a longstanding relationship with the Ahmadi community in Ireland.

Michael Nugent, chair of Atheist Ireland, said the attack was particularly “senseless” because the Ahmadi Muslim community is at the forefront of promoting peace and tolerance among all religions and none in Ireland.

Updated

Khuram Shazad Butt while he worked on the London Underground in 2016.
Khuram Shazad Butt while he worked on the London Underground in 2016. Photograph: Supplied

More details have emerged about London attacker Khuram Butt’s work on the London Underground despite being a known extremist who had appeared on national television.

He worked as a trainee customer services assistant for just under six months last year.

One colleague claimed that as part of the training programme he was headquartered at London Bridge station and also worked at Westminster and Canada Water stations.

Transport for London, which runs the tube network, declined to comment on where Butt worked because of the ongoing police investigation.

Medical issues with a leg injury Butt suffered as a child led to poor attendance and his employment ended, the source said.

A TfL spokesperson said: “Khuram Butt worked for London Underground for just under six months as a trainee customer services assistant, leaving in October last year.”

Updated

The three attackers could have performed a dry run over London bridge nine minutes before the atrocity, according to the Times.

The white Renault van hired by the killers was first captured on CCTV driving on to the bridge from the north side at 9.58pm on Saturday — some nine minutes before the attack began.

According to sources quoted in the Times, the men likely made the trip to scope out police presence, traffic, and the potential for mass casualties.

Boris Johnson
Boris Johnson. Photograph: Chris J Ratcliffe/AFP/Getty Images

Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, acknowledged that MI5 and the police will have to answer questions about why a known Islamist extremist managed to carry out the attack without being stopped.

His comments go much further than Theresa May, who has said she would not comment while the investigations are ongoing.

Johnson told Sky News: “People are going to look at the front pages today and they’re going to say ‘how on earth could we have let this guy or possibly more through the net?’

“What happened, how could he possibly be on a Channel 4 programme and be committing atrocities like this? That is a question that will need to be answered by MI5, by the police, as the investigation goes on.”

Updated

Khuram Butt’s family left their native Jhelum district, in northern Punjab, for London in 1998.

The Guardian understands that the father ran a furniture store in the town of Mujahidabad, where Butt’s uncles family still lives.

A renowned businessman, the uncle works in the hotel industry and estate building. On Tuesday, after international media descended on the town, Butt’s family declined to speak to the press.

The security services in Pakistan have searched a restaurant of one of Khuram Butt’s relatives in the city of Jhelum, 60 miles south east of Islamabad, according to the Telegraph.

An event to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Israel’s victory in the six-day war has been postponed amid security concerns following recent terror attacks.

Almost 1,000 tickets had been sold for A Night To Honour Israel, which was due to take place in central London on 22 June. The organisers, Christians United For Israel UK, said they had expected hundreds more to be taken.

Although no specific security threat had been received, “we have been advised that our event could be a target”, CUFI said in a statement posted on its website.

It said: “Following recent attacks in central London and Manchester, a number of foiled attacks in recent weeks and the ongoing terror threat, we had already increased planned security to a much higher level than usual.

“However, having assessed the current situation and received independent advice we have taken the difficult decision to postpone the event. Islamic extremists have called for the specific targeting of Christians and Jews during the month of Ramadan, during which our event was set to take place. Although no specific threat has been received, we have been advised that our event could be a target.”

The event would be “the largest pro-Israel event of the year with both Christians and Jews meeting at a location just a short distance from the two recent London attacks”.

The six-day war, fought between Israel and three neighbouring Arab countries, ended in a decisive victory for Israel and marked the beginning of its occupation of Palestinian territories.

Updated

Here are Robert Booth and Vikram Dodd with the latest on the ongoing police operation:

Police investigating the London Bridge terror attack have raided an address in Ilford, Essex, as pressure mounted on the security services over missed opportunities to stop at least one of the attackers who was investigated for extremism by police two years ago.

Officers from the Metropolitan police’s counter-terrorism command began searches after entering an address in Ilford at 1.30am on Tuesday. The police said searches were continuing and nobody had been detained.

On Monday night, the remaining 10 people who had been arrested during the day by armed police were released from police custody without charge. A man and a woman had already been released. No one remains in custody.

Khuram Shazad Butt, 27, was investigated by officers in 2015 but they found no evidence he was planning an attack and he was “prioritised in the lower echelons of our investigative work”, according to assistant commissioner Mark Rowley, Britain’s top counter-terrorism officer.

Pakistani-born British citizen Butt and Rachid Redouane, who claimed to be Moroccan or Libyan, were two of the three men who carried out the murderous rampage at London Bridge and Borough Market in which seven people died and dozens more were injured on Saturday night.

Transport for London has confirmed that Butt worked as a trainee customer services assistant for six months last year. Butt was also an associate of radical hate preacher Anjem Choudary and his banned group al-Muhajiroun and had appeared in a Channel 4 documentary called The Jihadis Next Door unfurling what appeared to be an Islamic State flag in Regent’s Park in central London.

Officers at Scotland Yard believe they have identified the third accomplice, but he has not yet been named.

Updated

The mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, has joined her New York counterpart Bill de Blasio in offering support to London Mayor Sadiq Khan in the face of criticism from Donald Trump.

The former independent reviewer of terrorism, David Anderson, has urged the government not to revive terrorism prevention and investigation measures or Tpims in the wake of the attack.

The former Tory leader Iain Duncan-Smith said on Sunday he believed May would “beef up” Tpims to restore powers to force suspects to move homes.

In a letter to the Times, Anderson pointed out that relocation power to force a terror suspect to move up to 200 miles away from their homes was already restored in 2015.

Writing in response to an opinion piece, Anderson said the use of Tpims would fuel grievances. He wrote:

“Tpims, the coalition government’s replacement for control orders, are as stringent as anything available in a western democracy. Since the power to “relocate” subjects away from their home city was re-introduced (on my recommendation) in 2015, they have provided an effective way of dealing with a small number of terror suspects against whom it has not been possible to deploy the UK’s well-stocked armoury of criminal offences.

“The fires of grievance would certainly be fuelled were thousands of people to be constrained indefinitely, on the basis of executive suspicions communicated to them only in outline. Prosecution and surveillance, supported by communities and backed where necessary by Tpims, are surer solutions.”

Updated

The Dean of Southwark Cathedral, Andrew Nunn, is offering to help to people still locked out of their homes in the police cordon to the south-west of London Bridge.

The security services in Pakistan have searched a restaurant of one of Khuram Butt’s relatives in the city of Jhelum, 60 miles south east of Islamabad, the Telegraph reports.

One official at the scene told The Telegraph that British officials had said that they suspected Khuram Butt had been radicalised in the UK rather than in Pakistan, but that they were carrying out searches of relatives’ houses as precaution.

“Our British counterparts told us they don’t think he was radicalised here, and we think it is probably more likely that he was trained in Syria. But we are searching the homes of any relatives connected to him and we are tracing all telephone calls made by family members,” the official said.

Updated

Sadiq Khan says Trump comments 'ignorant'

Sadiq Khan has stepped up his war of words with Donald Trump, accusing the US president of making “ignorant” comments about Muslims that play into the hands of extremists.

Appearing on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Khan said: “There are millions of Muslims around the world who love America, me included. And to play into the so-called Isis narrative that western liberal values are incompatible with Islam is ignorant.”

Khan said he was too busy to respond to Donald Trump’s tweets.

He added: “We are not kids in a playground. He’s the president of the United States. I’m too busy to respond to his tweets. Isn’t he busy?”

The mayor added: “I’m not in a war with Donald Trump.”

He added: “It takes two to tango. I’m not tangoing with this guy. I’ve got better things to do. From Saturday till now my focus has been dealing the aftermath of the horrific attack, working with the police, the security services, the government. That’s why I’ve not responded to the tweets from Donald Trump.”

But Khan repeated his objection to the government’s invitation to host Trump on a state visit.

State visits are given to leaders of countries who are respected and have done their dues and have earned a state visit. In the circumstances where there is the Muslim ban in place ... where he changed the refugee programme, I thought it was inappropriate and premature.

Some of the messages of support I have received, not just from US mayors and politicians, but ordinary Americans have raised my spirits.

Updated

Alfonso Dastis
Alfonso Dastis. Photograph: Denis Balibouse/Reuters

Spain has urged the UK to speed up the formal identification of the seven people killed in the attack amid mounting fears for 39-year-old HSBC employee Ignacio Echeverría.

According to the Spanish daily El País, the country’s foreign minister, Alfonso Dastis, spoke to his British counterpart, Boris Johnson, on Monday night to ask for efforts to identify the bodies of the victims of the attack to be speeded up so as not to “add to the pain and anguish of the families”.

Johnson apparently told Dastis that procedures needed to be followed to prevent misidentification.

The paper said that the sister of the missing Spaniard, 39-year-old HSBC employee Ignacio Echeverría, had been unable to see any of the victims’ bodies so far.

Echeverría’s father, Joaquín, said he feared the worst.

“We’ve had no news and at the moment, given that the wounded have been identified, I’m very pessimistic.”

He added: “By now you would have thought he’d have been identified and it seems he’s not among the wounded.”

Updated

Australian Kirsty Boden, 28, feared killed

The Australian media has named 28-year-old Kirsty Boden as one of the seven victims of the attack.

Boden, from Loxton, South Australia, was working as a health professional in London, according to 9 News Australia.

It says:

It is unclear whether Ms Boden was attacked at London Bridge or during the rampage that followed in the Borough Market area.

There are unconfirmed reports Ms Boden may have been attacked while going to the aid of another person.

It is understood she is the previously unidentified Australian that prime minister Malcolm Turnbull referred to during a press conference this morning.

Updated

If London normality means grabbing an umbrella and putting on a winter coat in June, then normality has returned for commuters coming out of London Bridge tube station this morning.

Borough Market remains cordoned off, its shops and restaurants inaccessible and closed, and police say it is not expected to reopen today.

The tube station exits leading towards Borough High Street are closed, and Transport for London has been advising passengers to avoid London Bridge tube, because of expected congestion.

But a steady stream of rush-hour workers are emerging from the station, heads down into the wind and driving rain, barely pausing to examine the huge pile of flowers laid by the traffic lights at the end of London Bridge, opposite the Barrowboy and Banker pub where some victims were stabbed on Saturday.

A man walks past flowers layed at a police cordon on Borough High Street
A man walks past flowers at a police cordon on Borough High Street. Photograph: Chris J Ratcliffe/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Khuram Shazad Butt - the attacker in the Arsenal shirt - while he worked on the London Underground in 2016.
Khuram Shazad Butt while he worked for Transport for London in 2016. Photograph: Supplied

Transport for London has confirmed that one of the attackers, Khuram Butt, worked as trainee customer services assistant for six months last year.

Updated

Residents in London Bridge have expressed frustration at the lack of information from police about the prospect of them returning to their homes.

One resident, who spoke to the Guardian, said:

“We understand the sensitivities of this and that it is a crime scene but it seems incredible that in all the police response not one part of it is liaison with local residents.

“We’ve been locked out since Saturday. Police at the cordon told us to go to Southwark council which is just useless as the council know nothing.

“We have gone to our local councillor and our local MP and none of them can get any information.

“They can open London bridge and let commuters get on with their lives, but what about us? I have a flight to an important business meeting on Wednesday and can’t even go home to get my passport.”

Government cuts to police funding have damaged attempts to prevent attacks, Britain’s former counter-terrorism chief has said.

Robert Quick, who led the counter-terrorism effort from 2008-09, told the Guardian that intelligence from communities about people supporting violent jihad had been lost.

Quick, who served as Scotland Yard’s assistant commissioner in charge of the counter-terrorism command, said: “Counter-terrorism funding is ringfenced but cuts to the general policing budget has impacted on neighbourhood policing teams in many parts of the country including London.

“This has reduced the capacity of the police to work in communities building relationships and trust to in turn generate community-based intelligence about persons of concern.”

Labour has said the Conservative decision to cut police numbers since 2010 has left Britain vulnerable.

More than 130 imams and Muslim religious leaders have said they will refuse to say funeral prayers for the perpetrators of Saturday’s attack in London.

In a highly unusual move, Muslim religious figures from across the country and from different schools of Islam said their pain at the suffering of the victims and their families led them to refuse to perform the traditional Islamic prayer – a ritual normally performed for every Muslim regardless of their actions. They called on others to do the same.

They expressed “shock and utter disgust at these cold-blooded murders”, adding:

We will not perform the traditional Islamic funeral prayer over the perpetrators and we also urge fellow imams and religious authorities to withdraw such a privilege. This is because such indefensible actions are completely at odds with the lofty teachings of Islam.

Updated

Ignacio Echeverria
Ignacio Echeverria Photograph: Facebook

More than 48 hours after he was last seen, there is still no word on the missing Spaniard Ignacio Echeverría. The 39-year-old HSBC worker has been hailed as a hero after apparently using his skateboard to take on the attackers and defend an injured woman.

His sister has been going from hospital to hospital in a bid to find him, while his employers are said to have hired a detective to help the family with the search.

According to reports, his parents are due to fly to London today.
His family said yesterday that they had been asked to provide copies of his fingerprints, something his brother described as “not a good sign”.

The delay in ascertaining what happened to Echeverría also appears to be frustrating the Spanish government. On Monday night, the foreign minister, Alfonso Dastis, told reporters: “We’re pushing the British authorities because, frankly, this isn’t the kind of thing that can go on and on.”

Updated

Sadiq Khan says police have questions to answer

Sadiq Khan
Sadiq Khan. Photograph: Tom Jacobs/Reuters

The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, has urged the police and security services to respond to questions on what they knew about Khuram Butt and why they did not act on warnings about his behaviour.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Khan said: “Not unreasonably, these questions are being asked. I’m sure the police will look into what they knew, what they could have done, what they did do and if anything could have been done differently.”

Khan acknowledged that there were thousands of potential suspects under consideration by the police. But he added: “What we need to do is make sure that we ask these questions and the police and the security services respond and answer the legitimate questions we all have.”

The Labour mayor also warned that London would be more dangerous under Conservative government budget cuts, which could lead to 12,000 fewer police officers.

He said: “The Met police service has lost over the last seven years £600m. As brilliant as they are, that’s a big big cut. Over the next four years the current Conservative government has plans to cut a further £400m and on top of that they are changing the police funding formula, which means we could lose a further £700m. That’s £1.7bn. We’ve worked out that if they carry through with their plans we could be losing between 3,000 and 12,000 additional officers. That’s not sustainable. There’s no doubt fewer police officers means we are in more danger.”

Khan also criticised Theresa May’s decision to invite Donald Trump on a state visit, amid his continuing spat with the president. Khan said:

When Theresa May first invited him on a state visit to our country at a time when he was proposing a travel ban on Muslims, changing the American policy on refugees, I said it was inappropriate for us to be rolling out the red carpet for Donald Trump. Nothing has changed my mind.

Of course we should have cordial relations with our closest ally ... but you call them out when they are wrong and there are so many things Donald Trump is wrong about. In those circumstances I’m not in favour of a state visit.

Updated

Little has been made public so far about Rachid Redouane, who police say was not known to them before Saturday’s attack. But Khuram Butt was on the radar of counter-terrorism investigators, as the Guardian reports:

Butt went by the name Abu Zaitun and was known widely as Abs by friends at the gymnasium where he trained in weightlifting and at the two mosques where he worshipped. He had two young children, a son aged about three and a recently born baby, with a woman described locally as his wife. He reportedly had jobs on the London transport network and in a fast food restaurant and lived a couple of miles from his mother in Plaistow, east London.

In recent years his fundamentalist approach to religion repeatedly caused concern among people who knew him. He associated with al-Muhajiroun, the banned extremist group whose leader, Anjem Choudary, has been linked to the recruitment of more than 100 British terrorism suspects.

Khuram Butt - seen on Channel 4 documentary the Jihadis Next Door (2016)
Khuram Butt seen in Channel 4 documentary The Jihadis Next Door. Photograph: Channel 4

Community sources in east London active in working against al-Muhajiroun and the groups that succeeded it, said Butt was asked not to enter the east London mosque after concerns about his activities. One source at the mosque, on Whitechapel Road, said that after the 2017 general election was called he was seen handing out flyers telling Muslims they should not vote or participate in the democratic process. In 2015, he was asked not to enter the mosque having tried to urge worshippers inside the building not to vote.

He was also forcibly ejected from a Barking mosque, Jabir bin Zayd, after he repeatedly interrupted the imam shouting “only God is in charge” and refusing to stop. It is believed he was also urging people not to vote at that mosque ahead of the 2015 poll. It was around this time that the police opened their investigation into Butt.

He also featured in a Channel 4 documentary about British jihadis broadcast last year, which showed he was involved in an altercation with police after a black flag was unfurled in Regent’s Park in London.

Updated

My colleague Hannah Ellis-Petersen was at the vigil on Monday evening for the victims of the London attack:

Standing in the crowd, bearing the banner with the sign “Not In My Name”, was Qasim Chowdhury, 38, who said the Muslim community of London was shocked at the attack. He said it had been important for him to see Sadiq Khan emphasising how those who carried out the stabbings in the busy restaurants and pubs of Borough Market were not representative of the values of Islam.

“This was a barbaric act, a heinous crime, and there’s no place for that in our religion,” said Chowdhury. “If you look at the meaning of Islam, it means peace, so for Islam to be associated with these types of crimes, these murderous acts, it has really shaken our whole community.”

He said he and many around him were worried about how terror and fear might change the welcoming spirit of London. “I never for once thought I would be witnessing this in my life,” said Chowdhury, who grew up in the city. “Islam is unfortunately now on the back foot because of the actions of a few.”

One family of three, who stood in the crowd sobbing and asked not to be named, said simply that they had lost someone in the Manchester terror attacks and had come to London to show “solidarity and strength”.

Updated

The London Bridge attack has put issues of security and counter-terrorism at the top of some voters’ election concerns, according to focus group work carried out for the Guardian, although the issue does not seem to be favouring either major party.

Comments from undecided voters in six key constituencies following the attack that killed seven people on Saturday night are notably different to those after the Manchester bombing, according to BritainThinks, which has been carrying out the work with the Guardian.

Tom Clarkson, the associate director of BritainThinks, said a number of those asked on Sunday what the most important issues would be affecting their vote pointed to security:

While the Manchester Arena attack prompted an outpouring of shock and disgust among the swing voters participating in the research, Saturday night’s terrible events have prompted far more comments around the political response to the threat of terrorism.

Many swing voters have suggested that security and terrorism are now the most important issue determining how they will vote on Thursday – and there now appears a greater belief that this is an ongoing challenge for the country, rather than just a terrible one-off event.

Updated

Fears are growing for missing Brisbane woman Sara Zelenak, who became separated from friends at the scene of the London Bridge terrorism attack, Australian Associated Press has reported.

A Facebook post by a family friend shared hundreds of times on Monday appealed for information about the 21-year-old, saying she usually rang her mother daily.

Zelenak’s stepfather, Mark Wallace, said from Brisbane that British authorities had been unable to shed any light on where she was following the attack on Saturday night UK time.

“I feel terrible, I can’t think,” he told News Corp. “I’ve contacted every hospital in London but they can’t give out patient details or even tell us if she has been admitted.” Wallace said Zelenak’s mother, Julie Wallace, was flying to London to try to find her daughter. Zelenak had moved to London in March to work as an au pair.

Sara Zelenak
Sara Zelenak. Photograph: Facebook

Updated

The Metropolitan police confirmed on Monday night that all of those arrested on Sunday in connection with the attack have been released without charge. Twelve people had been detained but have now been freed:

  • A 38-year-old woman arrested at address 1 in Barking.
  • A 28-year-old man arrested at address 2 in Barking.
  • A 52-year-old man arrested at address 2 in Barking.
  • A 55-year-old man arrested at address 2 in Barking.
  • A 27-year-old man arrested at address 2 in Barking.
  • A 55-year-old man arrested at address 2 in Barking.
  • A 49-year-old woman arrested at address 2 in Barking.
  • A 60-year-old woman arrested at address 2 in Barking.
  • A 19-year-old woman arrested at address 2 in Barking.
  • A 27-year-old female arrested at address 2 in Barking.
  • A 24-year-old female arrested at address 2 in Barking.
  • A 53-year-old woman arrested at address 2 in Barking.

Updated

A 23-year-old man arrested in the Chorlton area of Manchester the day after the arena bombing was also released overnight without charge.

Greater Manchester police did not name him, but the description matches that of Ismail Abedi, the brother of suicide bomber Salman Abedi.

The Metropolitan police says officers have been conducting a search at an address in Ilford, east London, overnight and into this morning.

It says nobody has been arrested.

What we know so far

  • Police have identified two of the three London Bridge attackers as Khuram Butt and Rachid Redouane. The third perpetrator has not been named.
  • Officials confirmed that Butt, 27, who was born in Pakistan but brought up in the UK, was known to police and had been investigated in 2015. He had appeared in a Channel 4 documentary, The Jihadis Next Door, and had been reported to the anti-terrorism hotline for extremism.
  • Butt was also linked to al-Muhajiroun, the banned extremist group whose leader, Anjem Choudary, was jailed last year for encouraging support for Islamic State.
  • But his case was ranked in the “lower echelons” of counter-terrorism investigations and he was not suspected of planning an attack.
London attacker featured in Channel 4 documentary
  • Redouane, 30, who reportedly claimed to be Moroccan and Libyan, was not known to police or MI5.
  • Twelve people – seven women and five men – who were arrested at two properties in Barking on Sunday were released without charge on Monday evening, police said.
  • Hundreds of people gathered in London on Monday evening in a vigil for the seven people killed and dozens wounded.
  • Two of those killed have been named as Christine Archibald, from Canada, and Londoner James McMullan. A French citizen, as yet unidentified, is also known to have died.
  • Others remain missing, including 21-year-old Australian Sara Zelenak.
  • There are 36 people still being treated in hospital for their injuries; 18 of them are in critical care.
  • Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron have continued to criticise the prime minister, Theresa May, over cuts to police numbers.
  • A book of condolence for the victims opens today at 9am at Southwark council headquarters in Tooley Street; it will move to Southwark Cathedral once the police cordon around the site of the Borough Market attack is lifted.
  • There will be a minute’s silence across the UK at 11am.

Updated

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