The police immediately stated that this was no accident, it was deliberate. And when have we ever heard the friends and family of a jihad terrorist say that he was a knowledgeable, devout, committed jihadi? They always say that he was a sweet, gentle soul, and that this is all a mistake, or that he was struggling with mental illness, which also makes an appearance in this story. And the clueless dupes at the Daily Mail eagerly retail this nonsense to their hapless readers.
“‘He’s quiet, kind, it’s just an accident’: Friend of Sudanese immigrant held over Westminster terror attack tells of his shock as man’s family insist he is a ‘normal person’ with no fanatical ideas,” by Martin Robinson, James Fielding, Paul Thompson, Tracey Kandohla, Rebecca Camber and Andy Dolan, Daily Mail, August 14, 2018 (thanks to Inexion):
A friend of the Westminster terror suspect described him as a ‘kind, quiet’ and ‘decent’ person who is ‘always smiling’ -and that the car crash outside the Houses of Parliament was an ‘definitely an accident’.
Speaking to ITV News this evening, Anwar Khater said he was sure Salih Khater did not mean to injure people yesterday when his car rammed through pedestrians and cyclists during the morning rush-hour.
He said: ‘You can take three words to describe any good person, he is. He is very generous, very smiley… even in any event that happens. He is always participating in a good way.
‘All the media and all the stuff now, they are all coming into a lie. Because the accident, it is an accident. It is nothing to do with terrorists, it is nothing to do with any kind of organisation that tries to attack any government department or something like that.’
He added: ‘You don’t expect what happened would be from him. I will put my word on it. It is an accident. It’s definitely an accident.
‘I don’t hear, I don’t listen to any change of characters. He is the same person I saw seven, eight years ago.’
‘The reason he went to London, the reason he was he had been to that area early is because he needed to go early to the embassy for a visa so that’s why he went to London and go see his family back home which he didn’t see for seven, eight years.’
Earlier today, the suspect’s family today insisted he is a ‘normal person’ as it emerged he told friends he was going to London for a Sudanese visa so he could holiday in the country he fled as a refugee.
Salih Khater’s brother Abdullah said they are all in a ‘state of shock’ about his sibling’s carborne rampage outside the Houses of Parliament at 7.30am yesterday morning.
Khater told friends he had a visa appointment at Sudan’s embassy in St James’ Park – less than a mile away from Westminster – and left Birmingham the night before to avoid early morning traffic.
But police believe he cruised the capital for six hours before deliberately ploughing his Ford Fiesta through crowds of cyclists and pedestrians before careering into terror-proof security barriers, narrowly missing two policemen.
Khater came to the UK eight years ago as an asylum seeker fleeing the wartorn Darfur region of Sudan and became a British citizen two years ago after settling in Birmingham.
But security sources told MailOnline today the Home Office had recently told him he was being investigated over ‘irregularities’ in his successful citizenship application.
Friends said he had also been depressed after he was also thrown off his Coventry University accountancy course for failing his first year and was ‘devastated’ when his father and a brother died in the past six months.
MailOnline has asked the Metropolitan Police, West Midlands Police and the Home Office to comment on what they knew about Khater, what he was doing in London and his immigration status. All three have refused.
The terror suspect has been described as a quiet loner who loved Aston Villa, Celine Dion, smoking shisha and whiling away time at an internet cafe below his old flat in the Sparkhill area of Birmingham.
His tenth floor council flat in Birmingham is just ten minutes from the former home of Khalid Masood and police will be probing if he was inspired by his murderous rampage 17 months ago.
Khater grew up in the rural town of Wad Madani, around 150 miles south-east of Khartoum, Sudan, where his mother and father farmed millet, and came to the UK in around 2010 as an asylum seeker.
The Westminster car attack suspect spent the night in a Birmingham internet cafe before heading to London, MailOnline can reveal.
Police seized computer number two Salih Khater used for less than half an hour, along with the hard drive and CCTV at the Bunna Internet Cafe in Sparkbrook, Birmingham.
Detectives will be probing what he was doing online and if someone was helping him plot an attack.
Mohammed Hussein told MailOnline how Khater, 29, a regular customer had been into his cafe three times on Sunday, twice to buy a baguette and coffee and the third time to use a computer – just hours before the Westminster attack which injured three cyclists on Monday morning.
He said: ‘I last saw him in here about 9.30-10pm shortly before we closed. He was using computer number two and was on it for less than 30 minutes having paid fifty pence. He had been in twice earlier in the day to buy a baguette and coffee but didn’t use the computer, that was only in the evening
‘He has been a customer for the last two years and I know him because he used to rent the flat alone above the cafe until four months ago. He moved out to find a cheaper place.’
Mr Hussein, 32, who has spoken to police investigating the attack, said: ‘He’s a good guy, a normal guy and what’s happened is shocking. We don’t know anything about it but it possible he was using the internet to plan it, he was behaving as he normally does, nothing different. He is a quiet guy, a loner.’
Fellow Sudanese Mr Hussein added: ‘I hope it doesn’t give my cafe a bad name, it’s not good for business.’
His manager, who saw the terror suspect on Sunday, explained: ‘This us a really popular place and I was shocked when I heard what had happened in London. I was having stomach pain. It gives the local Sudanese community here a really bad reputation.’
The cafe owner told how officers turned up yesterday afternoon to seize the computer and CCTV to aid their Investigation.
He said: ‘Police said it would be very helpful. They took the computer, it’s serial number, the hard drive and CCTV footage. They were grateful for assistance.’
Friends said he was recently devastated when his brother and father died in recent months, reportedly in a car crash.
In another blow he was studying accountancy at Coventry University until May but had his place ‘terminated’ after failing the first year, while friends said his poor English meant he couldn’t complete a pharmacy course 12 months earlier.
As police investigate the motive behind the attack, it emerged:
- Sudanese-born Briton Salih Khater, 29, was the man arrested by police after his Ford Fiesta ploughed through pedestrians and cyclists before smashing into security barriers yesterday;
- Home Office understood to have been investigating potential irregularities in his successful British citizenship application;
- Muslim community in Birmingham say he told Sudanese friends he was heading to the embassy for a visa on the day of the attack;
- Police say suspect is not co-operating but have arrested him on suspicion of terror offences and attempted murder;
- Searches of his Birmingham council flat continue today and police are analysing PC from internet cafe he used on the day before launching attack;
- He drove from Birmingham to London on Monday night and spent time in Tottenham Court Road and Whitehall before circling Westminster until attack at 7.37am;
- Khater had recently failed courses in Birmingham and Coventry with friends saying he had problems with English;
- He is the son of millet farmers in Sudan and was devastated when his brother and father died in a car crash, friend says
- Parliament Square could be pedestrianised after another Westminster carborne attack;
Friends say they are shocked he may have launched a terror attack.
Dr Mahdi Khair, who plays football with Salih, said: ‘He wasn’t the kind of man who you’d throw the allegation of terrorist attack at. He was so polite and a decent chap.
‘He never got into conflict with any of us at all. He said he worked for a security company and had lost his dad and brother. He always made peace with everybody. He was working very hard.
‘I don’t know why they’re accusing him. Anything could have happened. Something could have happened to the car or he could have had mental issues.’
Massar Mahmood, a trustee of Birmingham’s Central Mosque, said: ‘From our own inquries at the Mosque and from people of a similar background in the Sudan community he has shown no sign of doing any harm to anyone.’
He said: ‘There is no sign that he had been radicalised. He was not a fervent worshipper and had not shown any signs of that.
‘As far as we known he was trying to get a visa. He went the night before and presume he spent the time there travelling round to wait to visit the embassy.’
Ali Mohamed, an elder in Birmingham’s Sudanese community, said from their inquiries Khater was not deeply religious and they had been told he travelled to London to get a visa from the embassy.
‘He had all the paperwork in his car. As a British national it is difficult to get a visa to Sudan. That is why he had gone to London’, he said.
Mohamed said Khater was well known in the community and was a keen footballer supporter of Birmingham’s Aston Villa.
‘He is a very sociable and stable person. We don’t know if he was tired and got into the incident.
‘He was a very good person and nothing related to abnormal activity. He is a stable person and very a good person and everyone think he was a good person.’
Neighbours described him as a quiet man who regularly visited an internet cafe and a shisha lounge near to his home.
Local resident Ahmen Abdi said he was a man who ‘never spoke to anybody’.
‘I recognised his picture from the news and I was shocked,’ Mr Abdi said.
One customer at the internet cafe visited by Khater, who would only give his name as Adam, said he had been served coffee by Khater and that he was a polite and apparently humble man.
‘I am still in shock. I’ve known him for about a year and he is a very, very good man,” he told the Press Association.
‘I can’t see him doing anything stupid.
‘He was polite, humble and he kept himself to himself. The whole community is upset. I can’t see it not being an accident – I couldn’t see him hurting a fly, never mind a human being.’…
Michael Copeland says
Friends of Adolf Hitler more than likely described him as “a ‘kind, quiet’ and ‘decent’ person”.
What did the victims think?
SAE says
Really, Michael. The press only interviews liars rather than those truly affected by this barbarism. No doubt every imam in and around London would corroborate what a “decent” muslim Salih Khater is and this was definitely an accident. Suspension of disbelief is essential in these ridiculous “religion of peace” fairytales.
mortimer says
The press almost never interviews that TOP INVESTIGATOR who has the goods on the perpetrator and a lot of corroborative details that are critical in understanding the motives.
The investigation is THOROUGHLY FILTERED by the top cops and their political masters to appear as BLAND and UNCONTROVERSIAL as possible in the matter of ISLAMIC MOTIVATION.
The final reports on the news are so FILTERED and DISGUISED that ‘mother’ of the investigation would be barely able to recognize the ‘baby’ of the original facts and conclusions… all kept away from us, because they are SHIELDING ISLAM FROM CRITICISM.
Terry Gain says
I would describe Khater as what he is: a devout Muslim,
StellaSaidSo says
Indeed, Muslims in UK have been getting away with vehicular jihad for years. This came to light when it was noticed that a disproportionate number of pedestrian fatalities involved a Muslim motorist and a white victim.
Terry Gain says
Hitler loved art and music. He may have even enjoyed fine wine. And he washed his face, brushed, his teeth and combed his hair and moustache every day. And I have never seen a photo of him dressed in pants which were not pressed. In fact, he always has a crease in his pants.
mortimer says
Terry, thanks for your demonstration of ‘false conclusions’.
If people had met Osama bin Laden at a social gathering, he too would have been thought polite and well brought-up.
BC says
Actually you are right, many people who met him said he was ‘charming’. Probably they did not get close for very long as he suffered from flatulence and halitosis!
tanker weams says
They don’t call it the “Daily Fail” for nothing
BC says
The Daily Mail, not the most reliable of papers, is just reporting what his friends and families are saying. That is what they always say about every Muslim criminal, ‘he was a really nice person’. Standard Muslim obfuscation. This should not be taken as the official view. Nobody rams the security barriers at the House of Parliament to apply for a visa! Perhaps the most heavily protected building in London. Especially after trying to mow down cyclists and pedestrians! It was clearly no ‘accident’ but a political act.
A Muslim does not need ‘connections’ to terrorist organisations to do terrorist acts, he or she just needs to be a Muslim, doing what he or she thinks is ‘allah’s’ command as told by Mohammad
Carol the 1st says
I wonder if a muslim under stress and wishing to commit suicide can see killing kafirs as an insurance policy for Islamic heaven and a disguise – even to himself – for what he’s really doing.
Fred Alan Medforth says
You’ re protecting our murderers: rage by the head of the biggest-selling German daily against Merkel’s government —
If an AfD politician were to present this commentary in the BILD newspaper as a speech in the German Parliament, all hell would break loose. As editor-in-chief Julian Reichelt now writes himself against the Merkel government in a rage, an unprecedented fit of anger is in a leading medium: “Our state protects those who want to slit our throats. He calls this “insanity” and “political failure of the most dangerous kind.” No country in the world “makes its worst enemies as comfortable as Germany”. Responsible for this: “Our government”.Reichelt is aroused by the dangerous and “relevant persons” who cannot be deported from Germany. Blaming the judiciary for this is not enough, says the head of the tabloid “Bild”. Because the judges are enforcing laws that our politicians make. Reichelt calls this “suicidal madness”, which politics “has not ended for years”. One could not justify “this endlessly with’the constitutional state’, for the constitutional state is based on laws made by politicians”. And then all hell breaks loose: “Our laws do not protect us sufficiently, but protect those who hate us. This situation is intolerable. Our government is responsible for this.” The editor-in-chief of the largest German newspaper demands: “Anyone who wants to destroy our constitution and our state must be able to be deported immediately, even if drastic punishments threaten at home.Reichelt refers to the “767 Islamic potential offenders” living in Germany”. They see “only three ways to deal with us’unbelievers’: enslave, force to convert to Islam or kill.” Knowing that “enslavement and conversion are futile, they are constantly making plans to murder as many of us as possible with terrorist attacks.
Read more:
http://searchlight-germany.blogspot.com/2018/08/you-re-protecting-our-murderers-rage-by.html
Buraq says
“The Independent” has been in full panic mode. His friends say it was an accident, he’s a nice guy, very quiet, etc … And, of course, the article in “The (anything but) Independent” states that Nassar Mahmood, a trustee at Birmingham Central Mosque, said Mr Khater did not worship there and enquiries suggested he was not a “fervent” Muslim. So, he didn’t even darken the doors of Birmingham’s Central Mosque.
Pull the other one, it’s got bells on it!
And no posts allowed following the article. “The Independent” knows it would be torn to shreds because no one believes the lie of Islam’s peaceful nature any more.
Phil Copson says
“…Dr Mahdi Khair said….‘I don’t know why they’re accusing him. Anything could have happened. Something could have happened to the car or he could have had mental issues….”
——————————————————————————————————-
Would you trust a doctor who lives in that state of moral abdication ? “Not my fault the patient died – how was I to know that injecting him with weed-killer would kill him ? Proper drugs are really expensive you know, and what about all the people I haven’t killed ?”
No Muzzies Here says
He likes Celine Dion! I guess that settles it. He’s really a good, kind, peace loving person who wouldn’t hurt a fly.
And that is why the UK has only a few more years to go, matey!
mortimer says
Dr. Joseph Mengele exhibited courtly manners towards the medical experiment subjects whom he had TORTURED TO UNCONSICIOUSNESS and then SNUFFED.
Mengele’s good manners did not stop him from committing mass murder.
IT’S THE IDEOLOGY, STUPID.
What was the IDEOLOGY of Salih Khater???
dan christensen says
The real accident, and a fatal one, is that the Western Elites who invited muslims into the West have escaped justice for their cruel and unnaturel crime against civilised peoples.
To replace whole civilised populations with analphabetic creatures from the 7’th century ought to be a crime against humanity.
mortimer says
Dan, there was a slogan in Maoist China: “SMASH THE OLD WORLD, BUILD THE NEW WORLD”.
That is what the globalist Leftards want to do.
They are using Islam as a battering ram to SMASH THE OLD WORLD of European civilization.
They are creating chaos using Muslim terrorists to impose new, totalitarian policing methods to watch the populace and control all opinions that are expressed.
It is devious.
StellaSaidSo says
+1
Not just devious – diabolical. And they are rolling it out very fast.
FYI says
He was “very smiley”.
Perhaps, to his fellow muslims, he seemed so.
But then…
“We smile in the face of some people,
although our hearts curse them”
Abu Ad Dardai
No doubt the defense lawyers will be trying their usual tricks:just wait and see!
{let’s see now:He’s a victim of..racism,”islamophobia”,inconsiderate kaffirs,a gentle soul who was forced to go jihadi after seeing a woman with uncovered hair,mentally unbalanced,his grandma just didn’t love him enough….whatever made-up story works to exonerate the guilty.
Rarely says
He may very well not have been part of any terrorist anything. His friends and acquaintances may very well honestly see him as they described. I know a number of people who fooled everyone around them for years..
He will be charged for the crimes he committed and hopefully convicted. Life certainly wasn’t going the way he hoped (learning better English would have helped) and he could easily have been overwhelmed by everything. He may simply have been a loser p’oed at England for his failure. However if he had a “terror” motive, and on the surface it certainly looks that way, we can hope the computer search will clarify that..
Ragdoll says
Another article, from the Telegraph, states that the Sudan embassy in London confirmed that this man definitely did not have a visa appointment, so that whole line of explanation is total BS.
I guess it’s surprising that it’s taken this long for the “accident” / “mental illness” cards to be played. He’s still been charged with preparing acts of terrorism and attempted murder, so……there may be a sliver of hope yet that he will go down for his crimes.
melek-ric says
Not to mention that he’s yet another “refugee” who apparently wanted a visa to travel back for a holiday in the country he fled…
Carol the 1st says
See post above – no visa appointment confirmed.
A_M_Swallow says
[quote]
But police believe he cruised the capital for six hours before deliberately ploughing his Ford Fiesta through crowds of cyclists and pedestrians before careering into terror-proof security barriers, narrowly missing two policemen.[/quote]
Since the crash was at 7:30 am this means he arrived in London at 1:30 am – the middle of the night. Even then he could not find a parking spot. If this was a genuine accident he would have done better to catch the train in from Birmingham.
somehistory says
Some of the people who “knew” Ted Bundy said similar things.
A murderer doesn’t let everyone know ahead of time what they intend to do, otherwise, someone might stop them.
He “lost his father and brother recently,” and this is a “reason” to attempt murder of many others?
Fairly sure it was not an “accident.” If he fled Sudan due to war, and was a legitimate “refugee,” it is unlikely he would wish to go back for a “vacation.”
Leon Degney says
They do want to and do go back to the countries they “fled” as “refugees”. I know first hand that this happens. To me, this says they are not legitimate refugees.
G179 says
He could well be kind, quiet and polite. He simply has a different set of values than western civilization. He has a religious imperative to kill innocents. That’s all there is to it.
Baucent says
It may well be the people who knew him, thought he was kind and quiet, but what was he doing with all that time on the computer? I suspect watching ISIS videos and getting trained as a vehicular jihadi.
When you watch the video of his attack, there is no way the car being driven like that was a simple traffic accident.
Ronen says
I like the daily mail – at least they are being original as the usual excuse is mental illness.