LONDON, June 19. /TASS/. Worshippers have been injured by a van ploughing into a crowd outside Finsbury Park Mosque in north London, the British Muslim Council said on Twitter.
"We have been informed that a van has run over worshippers as they left Finsbury Park Mosque. Our prayers are with the victims," the tweet reads.
The London police said earlier that incident had occurred in the Seven Sisters Road area. "Police were called just after 00:20 on June 18 to reports of a vehicle in collision with pedestrians. Officers are on the scene with other emergency services. There are a number of casualties being worked on at the scene. There has been one person arrested. Enquiries continue," the police statement said.
In 1997-2004, infamous cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri used to preach in Finsbury Park Mosque. He was accused of being linked with al-Qaeda and was arrested in 2004. Two years later, he was sentenced to seven years in prison on charges of race hate and soliciting to murder. In 2011, his prison sentence came to an end but he wasn’t released as the United States demanded his extradition.
He was suspected of organizing a militant training camp in Oregon and participating in a hostage-taking incident in Yemen in 1998. In the US, Abu Hamza al-Masri was condemned to life imprisonment.
Being a support of radical Islamism, he went to Afghanistan in the late 1980s to fight against the Soviet troops. During military activities, he lost both his hands and started using hooks instead.