Man convicted of attempted murder after driving into people outside UK parliament

Prosecutors said it was reasonable to assume Salih Khater had a terrorism motive

Salih Khater was found guilty of attempted murder. EPA

A 30-year-old man has been found guilty of attempted murder after he drove his car into cyclists and police outside the UK parliament in what prosecutors said appeared to be a terrorist attack.

Salih Khater ploughed his Ford Fiesta into 14 cyclists who were at a crossing outside the Houses of Parliament in central London in August 2018.

He then veered across the road into a security lane and crashed into the barriers, narrowly avoiding two police officers who managed to jump out of the way of the car.

Khater struck two joggers and several cyclists who were treated in hospital for their injuries.

Khater, of Highgate Street, Birmingham, had claimed he had gone to London to get a visa from the Sudanese embassy but “got lost” around Westminster. He had claimed he crashed by accident.

But London’s Old Bailey court heard that Khater had arrived in London in the early hours of the day of the attack to carry out a reconnaissance of the area.

Jenny Hopkins from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said - whatever Khater’s motives were - it was clear it was not an accident but “a deliberate attempt to kill and maim as many people as possible”.

It was reasonable to assume Khater had a terrorism motive because of the site of the incident and previous attacks, prosecutors from the CPS counter terrorism division said.

In a previous terror attack in March 2017, Khalid Masood killed four people by driving his car into them on nearby Westminster Bridge before getting out and stabbing to death a police officer.

Khater will be sentenced at a later date.