Cookstown man came face to face with London attackers

By David Hunter

A Co.Tyrone man has described how he came face to face with the London terror attackers on Saturday evening. 

Seven people were killed and more than 40 others injured when a van crashed into crowds on London Bridge. 

The terrorists then moved towards Borough Market carrying out a series of knife attacks. 

Iain McKenzie, an I.T. consultant, was in a bar on Saturday night, watching the Champions League match with his girlfriend. 

"I actually thought the guy had a heart attack or something at the wheel and had lost control," he said.  

"The attackers got out of the van at the passenger side with a large knife. At that point one of them ran towards me and I just turned and sprinted as hard as I could.

He continued: "We found out later one of the victims was actually standing beside us in the pub. We saw, I think his sister was on the news. When I saw his picture I recognised him."

IMAGE: Iain McKenzie in a London pub just before Saturday's terror attack.

Iain, who's in his 30s said he was shocked by the circumstances of the attack, and how close he came to the terrorists. 

"You see these things on the news and, you know, until it happens to you personally, you don't really think you could be a potential victim."

Meanwhile, Gardai are investigating one of the attackers after documentation showed he had lived in the Republic of Ireland.

Rachid Redouane is of Moroccan and Libyan descent and spent more than a year in the Rathmines area of Dublin.

He had not been known to police in the UK or in Ireland.

Khuram Butt was known to police and MI5, however security sources in the UK say there was no evidence he was planning an attack after an investigation in 2015. 

Last year he appeared in a Channel 4 documentary called The Jihadis Next Door.

The 27-year-old came to Britain as a child when his parents sought asylum from Pakistan.

The third attacker was Moroccan-Italian man, Youssef Zaghba.

The 22-year-old, who had been living in east London, had apparently worked in a restaurant and was not a subject of interest to either British police or MI5.

Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera reported that he was born in Fez in January 1995 to a Moroccan father and an Italian mother.

He was reportedly stopped at Bologna airport in March last year while trying to take a flight to Istanbul, before potentially travelling on to Syria.