Reading suspect dismissed as terrorist two years ago

Khairi Saadallah, the suspect in the Reading stabbings, was twice assessed by security services but was deemed to pose no danger of staging an attack.

Investigators are picking through his life as they search for evidence of the motivation for the stabbings. It has now emerged that the 25-year-old was referred to Prevent, the government’s anti-radicalisation strategy, and then to MI5 in the past two years.

He is understood to have been assessed by Prevent in 2018 and found to have no clear ideology, but was deemed to need additional mental health support.

Last year, MI5 had Saadallah under investigation as a person who might travel to Libya 'for extremist reasons', but again that claim was found to lack credibility and he was assessed as being far from the legal threshold for investigation.

Saadallah’s record of extensive mental health problems is understood to be considered a significant factor in his motivation for the attack, which saw three men die. Community concerns have been raised after it emerged that his three victims – James Furlong, Joe Ritchie-Bennett and David Wails – were friends and members of the LGBT community.