Published 18:36 IST, December 2nd 2019
Britain honours London Bridge attack victims with vigil in Guildhall Yard
Britain honours London Bridge attack victims with a vigil in Guildhall Yard. Johnson, Corbyn, Mayor Sadiq Khan and other officials, citizens mourn the loss.
To honor the murder of two people by a militant knifeman on a stabbing spree near London Bridge, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the head of the opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, attended a vigil on December 2. The vigil was held in Guildhall Yard, in the heart of the City of London. A man and a woman named Jack Merritt, 25, and Saskia Jones, 23 were stabbed to death by Usman Khan, a man convicted of terrorism offenses in 2012. The terrorist went on the rampage with kitchen knives at a prisoner rehabilitation conference beside London Bridge injuring more at the spot. Just then the bystanders, including a Polish man brandishing a narwhal tusk and others with fire extinguishers, caught hold of Khan, who was wearing a fake suicide vest, wrestling him to the ground.
Johnson assures firm countermeasures
As the country enters the last few days before snap general elections to end the parliamentary deadlock on Britain's divorce from the 27-nation bloc, the country is intensifying its terror checks. Politicians blame the attack on the result of Khan's early release despite a warning from the sentencing judge in 2012 that he was a danger to the public. Prime Minister of Britain Boris Johnson said that he had ordered the nation to step up their monitoring of convicted terrorists released early from prison. On December 1, Johnson also revealed that nearly 74 people with terror convictions had earlier released from prison in a similar way to Usman Khan, who left the jail in December 2018 and stabbed two people to death on November 29.
The Prime Minister on Sunday said that he deplores the fact that this man was out on the street, and thinks it was absolutely repulsive and that the Government is going to take action.
Terror: crucial issue in elections
Usman Khan has become a political issue just ten days ahead of UK's December 12 elections. Johnson has blamed the Labour Party for changing the law in 2008 and allowed the early release of the prisoners. Johnson, on the other hand, has promised that if he wins these elections, his government will end early release for terror offenses and introduces minimum 14-year sentences, and those who are convicted will never be released. However, these proposals were not mentioned in the formal manifesto of the Conservatives which was released on December 1. Johnson has received intense backlash for politicizing the terror attack including the father of the first-named victim.
The opposition claims that Conservatives have been in power for nearly a decade and had not talked about strengthening the terror laws until Friday when Khan killed two people. Other parties have also argued changes of sentencing laws introduced in the 1990s under the Conservative government had also attributed to the early release system. Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn said in an interview with international media that there has to be an examination of how British prison services function and things that happen to the prisoners 'crucially' after they are released. The greatest opposition for the Conservatives, the Labour Party has also not mentioned 'terror' in their manifesto.
Johnson also said that the prisoners are being properly invigilated in order to make sure there is no threat to the nation. The UK PM also added that the British government has taken a lot of action in the last 48 hours since the attack happened. The 28-year-old, Khan was shot dead by the police on London Bridge while he was wearing a vest of fake explosives after his stabbing spree at nearby prisoner rehabilitation event. ISIS claimed responsibility for the stabbing rampage on the London Bridge, that killed two and injured three seriously.
(With inputs from agencies)
Updated 18:57 IST, December 2nd 2019