Alleged Finsbury Park assailant may have planned to target Al Quds march

Darren Osborne was considering targeting the anti-Israel march on Sunday, before attacking the north London mosque

21 June 2017, 1:18 pm

A police officer talks to local people at Finsbury Park in north London, where one man has died, eight people taken to hospital and a person arrested after a van struck pedestrians. Photo credit: Victoria Jones/PA Wire

The alleged perpetrator of Monday’s attack at Finsbury Park mosque was reportedly plotting to target last weekend’s pro-Palestine Al Quds Day March instead.

Darren Osborne, 47, was detained by members of the public, and then arrested by police after driving a van into worshippers at a the north London mosque, but reports now suggest this wasn’t his preferred target.

According to the The Daily Telegraph, Osborne made “abusive and aggressive” comments about the Al Quds Day march in his local pub in Cardiff on Saturday evening, one day before he killed one and injured 11 in Finsbury Park.

The landlord of the pub which Osborne frequented, Andy Parker, told the newspaper: ‘He was very motivated about the Muslim Al Quds day rally going on on Sunday in London and kept saying: ‘Our brothers and sisters are dying and someone needs to do something about it.”

And one pub regular said:: “Now I think about it maybe his plan was to target this march but then went to the mosque when that didn’t work out.”

After ranting about the demonstration, Osborne reportedly got drunk and fell asleep in the van which he later used to carry out the attack.