Family took away Pak-origin London Bridge attacker's passport: wife


PTI | London | Updated: 06-06-2019 21:02 IST | Created: 06-06-2019 20:25 IST
Family took away Pak-origin London Bridge attacker's passport: wife
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The family of one of the London Bridge attackers took his passport away to stop him travelling to war-torn Syria, the Pakistani-origin terrorist's wife told an inquest on Thursday. Khuram Butt booked a holiday to Turkey in 2015, but his wife Zahrah Rehman told the Old Bailey she refused to go, the BBC reported.

She told her family she feared he would take their young son to Syria, so they took both Butt's and the child's passports away, she said. Eight people were killed and 48 others were injured in the attack Butt carried out with two other men on June 3, 2017.

The trio mowed down pedestrians on London Bridge before launching a knife attack in nearby Borough Market. Butt, 27, Rachid Redouane, 30, and Youssef Zaghba, 22, were shot and killed by police less than 10 minutes after the terror attack began.

The so-called Islamic State terror group later said it was behind the attack. Rehman said her family was originally from Pakistan, but she was born and brought up in the UK.

She said when she first met Butt through family connections he was "really confident", "charismatic" and "quite light-hearted". They had an arranged marriage on Christmas Day, 2013, that he initiated and were not allowed to speak during their engagement.

"We were just a normal Muslim family," she told the court. She said they took the best of both cultures, celebrating Halloween, but also observing Ramadan.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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