Royals attend Westminster Abbey service for victims of London terror attack
LONDON — Prince William, Duchess Kate and Prince Harry joined the victims of last month’s deadly terror attack in the British capital for a memorial service at Westminster Abbey on Wednesday, yards from the scene of the rampage.
Prince William laid a wreath at the historic church’s Innocent Victims Memorial that commemorates the victims of war and oppression around the globe.
Almost 2,000 people attended the ceremony, including emergency service workers, Home Secretary Amber Rudd and London Mayor Sadiq Khan.
Four people were killed on March 22 when Khalid Masood rammed his car into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, before fatally stabbing a policeman outside the Houses of Parliament. Masood, who lived in the central city of Birmingham and spent the night before the attack in Brighton, southern England, was shot dead by police.
“What happened a fortnight ago leaves us bewildered,” said John Hall, the the dean of Westminster, at the service.
"What could possibly motivate a man to hire a car and take it from Birmingham to Brighton to London, and then drive it fast at people he had never met, couldn’t possibly know, against whom he had no personal grudge, no reason to hate them and then run at the gates of the Palace of Westminster to cause another death? It seems likely that we shall never know.”
The Islamic State claimed Masood as a “soldier” of the group but police found no evidence of an association with ISIS or al-Qaeda. They said Masood clearly had "an interest in Jihad," however.
U.S. tourist Kurt Cochran, 54, retired window cleaner Leslie Rhodes, 75, and Aysha Frade, 44, a Spanish teacher, were killed on the bridge. Policeman Keith Palmer, 48, died after he was stabbed by Masood.
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