London Bridge attack: swift review of sentencing pledged – latest updates
Attacker Usman Khan was ‘student and friend’ of radical preacher Anjem Choudary, according to reports
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Usman Khan was likely to be considered a low to medium risk, priority three target for Britain’s intelligence agencies, reports the Guardian’s defence and security editor Dan Sabbagh.
MI5 characterises the individuals it monitors in four categories, with priority one applying where there is “credible and actionable” intelligence of attack planning. Priority 3 individuals are those where “further action is needed to determine where a threat exists”.
Some more on that Sky News report that the attacker had links to Anjem Choudary, who co-founded the now banned Al-Muhajiroun group. The broadcaster reports:
Usman Khan was one of a series of Al-Muhajiroun connected terrorists to be released over a six-month period beginning in the autumn of 2018. He was known to have attended a series of Al-Muhajiroun protests and street stalls in the Midlands area prior to his arrest.
In the months before his arrest and conviction for the London Stock Exchange terror plot, police raided his home in Tunstall, Staffordshire, over concerns about his links to Choudary. At the time of his arrest, investigators found Choudary’s phone details on Khan’s mobile phone.