TERRORIST DARREN OSBORNE FOUND GUILTY OF FINSBURY PARK LONDON MOSQUE ATTACKER JAILED FOR AT LEAST 43 YEARS.
In this file photo dated Monday, June 19, 2017, forensic officers move the van and inset pic Of terrorist Osborne |
Jurors
found Darren Osborne, 48, from Wales, guilty of murdering 51-year-old Makram
Ali and trying to kill others in the Finsbury Park area of north London on June
19, 2017.
A British man was found guilty on
Thursday of terrorist activity , murder and attempted murder after deliberately
driving into a group of people outside a London mosque.
Osborne drove the hired vehicle into a
group of Muslims gathered around Ali, a father of six who had collapsed near
his home after leaving late-night Ramadan prayers.
Osborne was found guilty at Woolwich
Crown Court, with police and prosecutors saying it was an act of
"terrorism".
The unemployed “loner” had pleaded not
guilty, telling the court that a man called “Dave” was driving at the time — a
claim police denounced as a fabrication. The May Manchester suicide bombing and
the June London Bridge van attack and stabbing rampage further fueled his
obsession.
It was the fourth security incident in
Britain in the space of three months.
Osborne, who had not previously
expressed far-right views, reportedly developed an obsession with Muslims after
watching the BBC programme, Three Girls, a drama broadcast last May about
events in Rochdale, northern England, where white girls were abused by gangs of
mainly British Pakistani men.
This hatred was subsequently fuelled
by online research into extreme right-wing figures and groups, police said.
The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB)
welcomed the verdict in a statement, saying that it was time to take
Islamophobia seriously in the UK.
Harun Khan, secretary-general of the
MCB, said: "The scenes we witnessed last summer were the most violent
manifestation of Islamophobia yet in our country. We cannot be complacent and
regard this as a one-off terrorist incident.
"We heard during the trial how
Osborne was motivated by anti-Muslim groups and Islamophobic tropes not only
prevalent in far-right circles, but also made acceptable in our mainstream. The
case tells us that we must all exercise caution when tempted to stigmatise any
group of people, regardless of colour, creed or community," Khan said.
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