London Bridge Terrorist was lawfully killed

After around an hour of deliberations a jury has returned the verdict that terrorist Usman Khan was lawfully killed on London Bridge in 2019, following a two week inquest.

This verdict wasn't really in any doubt as the coroner, Mark Lucraft QC, had told jurors to return a conclusion that he was lawfully killed, based on the testimony from officers who made it clear they had made the decision for their safety and the safety of the public.

The coroner also asked the jury to return a narrative, in which they stated that the fake suicide belt was very realistic, the officer who fired the first two shots did so to incapacitate Khan and reduce risk to public and the jury also said that attempts made by Khan to sit up once he had been shot were interpreted by officers as a move to detonate the device.

Before running onto London Bridge Usman Khan had fatally stabbed two Cambridge university graduates, after strapping kitchen knives to his hands and attacking delegates at a prisoner education event in November 2019.

He murdered 23-year-old Saskia Jones and 25-year-old Jack Merritt who had volunteered for the Learning Together education programme before being chased from the hall and on to the bridge.

The 28-year-old homegrown jihadi was gunned down by armed officers outside Fishmongers' Hall,

Before armed officers arrived, other attendees at the event tried to incapacitate Khan, striking him with a chair, a fire extinguisher and even a narwhal tusk grabbed from the walls of Fishmongers' Hall.

The inquest heard six police officers from the Met and City of London fired 20 times at Khan, including 18 in a 90-second period after being sanctioned to carry out a so-called critical shot'' amid fears he was about to detonate his explosive device resulting in mass casualties.

Twelve of the 20 bullets hit Khan, and a forensic pathologist gave the cause of death as haemorrhage due to multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and abdomen.

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