A British man was found guilty on Thursday of murder and attempted murder after deliberately driving into a group of people outside a London mosque.
Jurors found Darren Osborne, 48, from Wales, guilty of murdering 51-year-old Makram Ali and trying to kill others in the Finsbury Park area of north London on June 19, 2017.
Osborne drove the hired vehicle into a group of Muslims gathered around Ali, a father of six who had collapsed near his home after leaving late-night Ramadan prayers.
Osborne was found guilty at Woolwich Crown Court, with police and prosecutors saying it was an act of “terrorism”.
It was the fourth security incident in Britain in the space of three months.
Osborne, who had not previously expressed far-right views, reportedly developed an obsession with Muslims after watching the BBC programme, Three Girls, a drama broadcast last May about events in Rochdale, northern England, where white girls were abused by gangs of mainly British Pakistani men.
This hatred was subsequently fuelled by online research into extreme right-wing figures and groups, police said.
The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) welcomed the verdict in a statement, saying that it was time to take Islamophobia seriously in the UK.
Harun Khan, secretary-general of the MCB, said: “The scenes we witnessed last summer were the most violent manifestation of Islamophobia yet in our country. We cannot be complacent and regard this as a one-off terrorist incident.
“We heard during the trial how Osborne was motivated by anti-Muslim groups and Islamophobic tropes not only prevalent in far-right circles, but also made acceptable in our mainstream. The case tells us that we must all exercise caution when tempted to stigmatise any group of people, regardless of colour, creed or community,” Khan said.
Source: Aljazeera
