Streatham terror attack: What we know about attacker Sudesh Amman

Streatham terror attacker Sudesh Amman stabbed two people just days after being released from jail, where he had been serving a three-year sentence for terror offences.

The 20-year-old, from Harrow in north London, was jailed in December 2018 for spreading extremist material.

Amman was under police surveillance when he started his knife attack, while wearing a fake bomb vest, on Sunday afternoon. He was shot dead by police.

In May 2018, Amman was arrested by armed police and charged with 10 terror-related offences: seven of making a record of information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism and three of dissemination of terrorist publications.

He had been 17 and living with his mother and younger siblings at the time, according to the Crown Prosecution Service.

The previous month, police had been told of extremist material being posted on Telegram by an account called @strangertothisworld, which turned out to be Amman.

He had used documents about making explosives, weaponry, and carrying out terrorist attacks. Among them were manuals on bomb-making, knife-fighting and close combat.

Police found he had shared his extremist views with his family - including siblings as young as 11, friends, and his girlfriend. These included his desire to carry out a terror attack using a knife or committing acid attacks from a moped.

Police found a notepad in his home, where he had listed his "life goals".

"Top of the list, above family activities, was dying a martyr and going to 'Jannah' - the afterlife," Alexis Boon, then head of the Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism command, said after he was jailed.

Late in 2017, he shared images via WhatsApp of child fighters with Islamic State-inspired propaganda and of IS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. He told his brother that IS still exists, is "here to stay" and described "reward from jihad".

He spoke via online chats about Muslims in London being massacred and put in conditions worse than concentration camps, said that Jews were doing worse to Muslims and that Yazidi women were slaves and it was permissible to rape them.

Reports at the time also said he had told his girlfriend she should murder her "kuffar" parents.

Early in 2018, he had been discussing school with one of his siblings when he said he would "rather blow myself up" and wanted to know "how to make bombs".

He also posted photos of a young man with a large knife, an image of text attributed to 'Sheikh Faisal' (convicted extremist Trevor Forrest), and images appearing to show his siblings in poses reminiscent of IS-inspired poses.

In November 2018, he pleaded guilty to seven of the charges and the other three were left on file.

He was jailed for three years and four months in December 2018.

At the time, prosecutor Kelly Brocklehurst told the court Amman's interest in Islamic extremism and Islamic State in particular was "more than a mere immature fascination with the taboo and with graphic violence".

The science and maths student at North West London College also had previous convictions for possession of an offensive weapon and cannabis.

Neighbour Anthony Stevens told Sky News Amman had been a "nice, polite boy" but was "easily led".

Mr Stevens added that Amman became angrier as he got older, "playing out 'Islamic terror' from his room... there was always noise and always fighting in the house".

"He grew weed from his loft too.

"There was always trouble in the house... the house was trashed."

At the time of the Streatham attack, Amman was thought to have been staying in a bail hostel in Tulse Hill, according to Sam Armstrong from the Henry Jackson Society.

He said the society had warned in December that Amman was due for release within the next two months and should not be let out of prison.