Police arrest Westminster crash attacker on terrorism suspicions

Investigators have revealed details about the man behind Tuesday's car crash that targeted the British Parliament, saying he in being questioned on suspicion of terrorism.

Investigators said Wednesday that Salih Khater, 29, had reportedly driven from his home in Birmingham late on Monday and arrived in the capital London just after midnight.

While crashing his car into the entrance gate of the Palace of Westminster on Tuesday, Khater hit a group of cyclists and pedestrians waiting for traffic lights to change, wounding three people.

Authorities are still attempting to find the motive behind the incident, which the British Home Secretary Sajid Javid said was being treated as a “terrorist attack”.

PressTV-UK police treating Parliament car crash as terrorism

The Scotland Yard has not ruled out terrorism after a man was arrested for “deliberately” crashing his car into people outside the UK Parliament.

Police began searching several properties in Birmingham and Nottingham which are suspected to have links to the suspect.

It has been revealed to Press TV that people living in Birmingham who knew Khater have said that they did not consider the man, who is of Sudanese descent, to have been radicalized by terrorist Takfiri ideologies.

Labour Party lawmaker Roger Godsiff confirmed the suspect was from his Birmingham constituency of Hall Green, and he is believed to have been known to West Midlands Police.

However, Neil Basu, who serves as the Assistant Commissioner for counter-terrorism in London’s police force, said he doesn't believe this person is known to either MI5 or counter-terrorism police, raising questions over the state-run counter-terror measures.

“It appears to have been a deliberate act, but what the motive was we can’t answer at the moment. We haven’t formally identified the suspect, but we don’t believe he’s known to MI5,” Basu said while speaking to reporters outside New Scotland Yard.

The official added that police did not pursue the attacker before he struck the Westminster gate, saying that the blue lights seen behind him in footage of the incident were those of an ambulance coincidentally answering a separate emergency call.

Basu said that his team’s current priority was to formally identify the suspect “and establish his motivation if we can – he is not currently cooperating”.

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