Usman Khan: Profile of a Killer


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Usman Khan was deceived, deceptive and dangerous.

And on a cold afternoon in November 2019, those three swirling character traits that had surfaced briefly but steadily throughout his adulthood combined in a deadly effect.

Much was known and recorded about the deviant behavior of local terrorist Khan before that fateful day.

He was jailed in 2012 for planning a terrorist camp in his parents’ Pakistani homeland, and was known in prison as the “main detainee” for his extremist views.

Usman Khan recorded a thank you message for a Learning Together event in Cambridge in March 2019 (Metropolitan Police / PA)

Khan was so notorious, in fact, that he was ranked among the 0.1% most dangerous prisoners in England and Wales when he was released to the community as a high risk offender of category On Christmas Eve 2018.

Less than a year later, aged 28, Khan was dead.

He was shot dead by armed police on London Bridge, around 15 minutes after strapping kitchen knives to his hands and fatally stabbing Cambridge University graduates Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones at nearby Fishmongers’ Hall, after apparently looking for two young people who embodied everything he was looking for. and failed to be.

Usman Khan on November 22, 2019, buying a bag he was carrying during the Terrorist Attack on Fishmongers' Hall
Usman Khan on November 22, 2019, buying a bag he was carrying during the terrorist attack on Fishmongers’ Hall (Metropolitan Police / PA)

Khan was born in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire on March 10, 2001. He was the sixth of seven children and attended a local public school, but dropped out at the age of 14 or 15.

Then, in November 2017, while in custody at HMP Whitemoor, Khan applied to enroll in a creative writing course with the University of Cambridge’s affiliated prisoner education program, Learning Together, which allowed him to meet the coordinator, Mr. Merritt.

The bosses of Learning Together denied that Khan was considered a “poster boy” for their program, and that they had impressed sponsors and supporters with this “terrorist success story”.

Nonetheless, victims ‘attorneys have suggested during the Fishmongers’ Hall atrocity investigations that the attention of such a prestigious organization has inflated the ego of someone on the opposite end of the spectrum of educational brilliance.

Indeed, Khan nobility applied for managerial positions on his release from prison, despite his obvious lack of experience and qualifications, while he also considered studying for a master’s degree at Cambridge.

Usman Khan aboard a train bound for London to attend the Learning Together event
Usman Khan on a train bound for London to attend the Learning Together event (Metropolitan Police / PA)

In fact, Khan has been denied jobs on several occasions during his 11 months as a free man, including by Timpsons – one of the largest employers of ex-offenders in the country – because of his previous conviction for terrorism.

It was during his teenage years that he became interested in the extremist views of prominent figures Anwar al-Awlaki and Anjem Choudary, head of the banned terrorist organization al-Muhajiroun.

He then admitted to planning a terrorist training camp to send anti-Western fighters to the UK and was given an indeterminate sentence which was amended to appeal for an extended sentence. As such, he was released without parole after eight years inside.

Khan has been described as an “influential” inmate who partnered with other high-level terrorists, including Lee Rigby’s rifleman murderer, Michael Adebowale, while Khan later told people he was ‘was repeatedly entangled with people like addicted cleric Abu Hamza and notorious prisoner Charles Bronson. .

Khan was described as a ‘model prisoner’ at a special meeting of MI5, the Staffordshire Police Special Division and the West Midlands Police Counter Terrorism Unit two weeks before his release.

The reality was very different. He was discovered to have hidden a razor and stored chemicals in his cell, assaulted a prisoner, applauded a terrorist attack in Barcelona and deliberately spoke during the two-minute silence for Remembrance Sunday.

Usman Khan sat on a table with Cambridge graduate Saskia Jones the day he fatally stabbed her
Usman Khan was sitting on a table with Cambridge graduate Saskia Jones the day he fatally stabbed her (Metropolitan Police / PA)

Khan’s behavior apparently showed marked improvement in the months leading up to his release, although an internal report suggests any compliance may have been deception intended to secure his release from prison.

Indeed, intelligence two months before his release from HMP Whitemoor suggested that he “would go back to his old ways” – interpreted to mean terrorism – and that he was planning an attack. And it turned out.

But he managed to convince his prison chaplain, the Reverend Paul Foster and probation officer Ken Skelton, that he had changed his ways for the better, with Mr. Skelton assessing the likelihood of recidivism and the risk of extremist delinquency of Khan as “weak” in the days leading up to his strike.

This was despite Khan having sometimes let his mask slip off, including on one occasion when he became angry with his mentor over his restrictive licensing terms – the witness later describing Khan as having “hatred in his mind.” eyes and real evil intent ”before suddenly checking his temper.

He even managed to fool Mr Merritt, who insisted that Khan had been ‘de-radicalized’ when a colleague from Learning Together raised concerns about possible terrorist images in a poem Khan wrote before his release.

Police tents outside Fishmongers' Hall on London Bridge following the terrorist attack
Police tents in front of Fishmongers’ Hall on London Bridge following the terrorist attack (Dominic Lipinski / PA)

Even on the day of the attack, wearing a fake suicide belt and carrying a backpack containing the possible murder weapons, Khan walked up to his former prison counterterrorism governor, offered him a hug and said, “I’ve learned that violence isn’t it’s not the way.

Another lie – but one that would have profound consequences for the lives of two young academics and everyone at Fishmongers’ Hall that terrible day.

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