Westminster Bridge killer ‘had links to terror group from 2004’, inquest hears

Westminster attacker Khalid Masood had ties to banned terror group Al-Muhajiroun and may have been a “radical Islamic extremist” as far back as 2004, the inquest heard today.

The 52-year-old killed four people on Westminster Bridge and then stabbed Pc Keith Palmer to death in the grounds of Parliament.

Masood was jailed in 2003 for stabbing a man in the nose and is believed to have converted to Islam while in prison. In 2009, he was named as a “person of interest” to the security services, and after the Westminster attack in March last year police found evidence of long-term interest in extremist Islam.

Gareth Patterson QC, representing relatives of the victims who died on Westminster Bridge, told the inquest today that Masood had moved to Crawley after his release from prison in 2004, and had also lived in Birmingham and Luton. “In recent years those three places have been stronghold of the Islamist group Al-Muhijaroun,” he said.

Mr Patterson said the group, shortened to ALM, has been linked to dozens of terror attacks. The barrister pointed to evidence of Masood “hanging around with ALM members again and again and again”, as he questioned Met counter terrorism officer Detective Chief Inspector Dan Brown. “There is a wealth of material from the early stage of his conversation from 2004 that he was a radical Islamic extremist”, he said.

Mr Brown said Masood, who had worked as a teacher, saw it as his “duty” to convert others to Islam, but there was no evidence of him radicalising others. He added that although Masood had attended the same Crawley mosque as members of the al Qaeda cell behind the 2004 fertiliser bomb plot, the police had not found any concrete ties to them.

Mr Brown also said there was no evidence that Masood was linked to a plot to bomb a Territorial Army base in Luton. And the officer refused to agree that Masood had lived in “ALM strongholds”. The inquest continues.