The Glasgow knife attacker: What we know so far
On Friday afternoon a knife attacker stabbed six people, including a police officer, at a city centre hotel in Glasgow.
The attacker was shot dead by armed police.
His identity has not yet been confirmed, but ITV News has now spoken to some of the attacker’s friends who say his name was Badradeen.
They told us Badradeen was an asylum seeker from Sudan, in his mid 20s, a troubled individual who suffered from anxiety issues.
We know he was shot inside the Park Inn Hotel which is housing asylum seekers during the coronavirus lockdown. Two of Badradeen’s friends say the night before the attack he confided in them that he was going to hurt someone.
They say they reported their concerns about these threats to the hotel staff and the next morning hotel staff asked them more about Badradeen’s state of mind. A few hours later, Badradeen left his room and started his stabbing spree.
Friends of Badradeen say he had been in Glasgow only a few months. He left Sudan a few years ago before coming to the UK via France on a lorry, spending time in Belfast then moving to Glasgow.
They describe him as a “shy person” who was increasingly disillusioned with the system dealing with his asylum claim in the UK.
He told them about his mother in Sudan who had passed away, and how he worried for his elderly father back home. He often questioned whether he made a mistake leaving Sudan.
More recently, Badradeen had apparently been self-isolating for over a week after experiencing coronavirus symptoms.
His friends told me it was while stuck in an internal hotel room that his mental health notably deteriorated.
They say he began accusing hotel staff of making excess noise, paranoid they were picking on him to stop him from sleeping. The night before the attack, he gave them the names of people he wanted to hurt.
Some were hotel employees.
One of Badradeen’s friends says they saw him minutes after the attack - he was holding a knife in his hand and was covered in blood. They asked him what happened and he was cold, replying that everything was okay.
Police were called and Badradeen wounded an officer, 42-year-old Constable David Whyte.
Then armed police arrived and Badradeen was killed.