Security questions after three deaths in UK knife attack, including US man

READING, United Kingdom: Britain´s interior minister on Monday promised that lessons would be learned from a stabbing rampage that left three people dead, including a US citizen, after a suspect held under terrorism laws was said to have been on the radar of security services.

The knife attack in a park in Reading, west of London, on Saturday evening is the third in a year, and has again raised concern about the early release of offenders from prison. A 25-year-old man, widely identified as Libyan refugee Khairi Saadallah, was initially arrested on suspicion of murder, then re-arrested under the Counter-Terrorism Act 2000.

Thames Valley Police said one of the victims was a local teacher, James Furlong. Another was his friend Joe Ritchie-Bennett, originally from Philadelphia, reports said. US Ambassador to Britain Woody Johnson offered condolences to everyone affected.

“To our great sorrow, this includes an American citizen,” he wrote on Twitter. British media reported that Saadallah had been freed from prison for non-terror offences earlier this month, and was known to the security services. In November, a convicted jihadist on parole was shot dead by police after stabbing five people — two fatally — near London Bridge in central London.

Armed officers then shot dead another assailant who stabbed and injured three people in the Streatham area of south London, in February. He had also been released early from a terrorism conviction and been under “active surveillance”. Both incidents prompted the government to move to tighten legislation on the early release of the most serious offenders, including those convicted of terrorism. On a visit to Reading, interior minister Priti Patel called the attack a “tragic, tragic event”, as pupils at Furlong´s school held a two minute´s silence in his memory. “We need to make sure that we learn the lessons from what has happened over the weekend to prevent anything like this from happening again,” she said.