Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
Updated at 11pm
THE FAMILY OF a Spanish man who used his skateboard to try to defend woman from one of the assailants during the London attack have confirmed that he had died, ending an excruciating four-day wait.
“Ignacio didn’t survive the attacks,” Ignacio Echeverria’s sister Ana wrote on her Facebook page.
“My brother Ignacio tried to stop terrorists and lost his life trying to save others. Igna we love you and will never forget you,” his other sister Isabel wrote on Facebook.
Friends of Echeverria, who lived in London, were quoted in Spanish media as saying that they were walking in the area when they saw what they thought was an ordinary fight.
On closer look, it appeared that a man was beating a woman.
Echeverria rushed over to help and tried to defend her with a skateboard he had with him, prompting British media to dub him the “skateboard hero”.
Spain has criticised the sluggish pace of the British victim identification process, which led to an excruciating wait for Echeverria’s two sisters, two brothers and parents.
Earlier, police confirmed that French national Sebastien Belanger was another victim of the London Bridge terror attack to be identified.
The French national has been identified as one of the eight people who were killed during the incident.
The 36-year-old was living and working in the capital.
Met Police have said that a specially trained family liaison officers are supporting his family.
Two Australians
The family of Australian national Sara Zelenak, aged 21, who died during Saturday’s terror attack on London Bridge, have paid tribute to her.
Metropolitan Police detectives confirmed her identity earlier today.
“We are deeply saddened at the tragic loss of our beautiful daughter and sister of Harrison and Scott,” the family statement read.
“We would like to thank our friends and family who are helping up through this very difficult time.”
Earlier today, London police who have been searching for the body of a French national missing since Saturday’s terror attack recovered a body from the river Thames.
Detectives were appealing for information about Xavier Thomas, aged 45, a French national who had not been seen since the night of the terrorist attack on London Bridge.
Last night at around 7.45pm, the body of a man was recovered from the river, near Limehouse, by specialist officers from the Marine Police Unit.
Formal identification has not yet taken place, however Thomas’ next of kin have been informed of this development.
This discovery has risen the death toll of the attack to eight.
Australian staff nurse Kirsty Boden, 28, was killed as she ran to try to help the wounded in the attack on London Bridge, her family said in a statement.
“She was the most outgoing, kind and generous person,” her family said.
“We are so proud of Kirsty’s brave actions which demonstrate how selfless, caring and heroic she was.”
Sara Zelenak was the second Australian killed during the attack.
Christine Archibald, a 30-year-old Canadian, died in her fiance Tyler Ferguson’s arms after the attackers’ van mowed her down on London Bridge.
“My baby brother lost the love of his life,” Cassie Ferguson Rowe wrote on Facebook.
In a split second his entire life was ripped away from him. Hearing his painful sobs on the phone while he’s alone trying to deal with this tears me apart.
Her family said in a statement that she worked in a homeless shelter before moving to Europe to be with her fiance.
“She would have had no understanding of the callous cruelty that caused her death,” they said.
Frenchman Alexandre Pigeard, 26, was working as a waiter at Boro Bistro in Borough Market, when he was stabbed.
His father Philippe Pigeard said his son’s death was “an incredible injustice”.
He was a “wonderful son, a perfect big brother,” a “shining young man,” Pigeard told AFP.
Identified by bank card
James McMullan, a 32-year-old from Hackney, east London, was identified by a bank card found on his body, according to his sister.
He had been out with friends and had stepped outside for a smoke at a pub next to where the attackers crashed their van.
“While our pain will never diminish, it is important for us all to carry on with our lives in direct opposition to those who wish to destroy us and remember that hatred is the refuge of small-minded individuals,” Melissa McMullan told Sky News.
Off-duty police officers and a business editor were also among the 48 people who were injured in the attack.
With reporting from Hayley Halpin, Gráinne Ní Aodha, Órla Ryan, Cliódhna Russell and Cormac Fitzgerald.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
I now have a smart washing machine & cooker. She did night classes
Prefer Heinz to HP really …
Tal,
I have a feeling that your cooker and washing machine may experience a mysterious malfunction tonight!!!
I dunno… but the hoover certainly wont be sucking anything up tonight.
Are they saying that someone could hack and turn on the immersion heater when I’m out of the house?!?
THE HORROR!!! HORROR!!!!!
Or turn mine on and charge it to your meter!
Ask GSOC, they know all about devices connecting to internet.
HP tell us this now?? 4 years after their wireless printers were exposed as having a major security flaw!!!
You can’t beat a good old cable connection. We have yet to see the effects if the amount of radiation in our houses. WI-FI, Cordless phones, Mobiles, WI etc etc.
It will be 30 yrs before we see the damage.
I wish I hadn’t read this.
It reminds me of reading one of the Snowden files that showed NSA and DARPA were experimenting with tapping into DVD players xboxes, TVs etc for spying
Your DVD player knows your considering disloyalty./it heard what you said about Snowden being a patriot.
Knock knock on your door two stern gentlemen in suits need to talk to you on “a matter of national security.”
“Are you involved with the Snowden leaks sir?”
How do they know..they won’t admit they do..it could b a coincidence..routine inquiry…
“Sir did you know treason is defined as giving aid and comfort to the enemy? That is what he’s done, supporting that would make someone an accessory you know?’
“No no err..Snowdens a traitor..a goddam traitor.I’d never support him.”
Agent 1 smiles “very good sir I’m sorry to have troubled you, we must have made a mistake”
” er yeh.guess so”
That’s the ‘chilling effect’ and that’s what this could turn into one day.
Snowden wasn’t saying Bush and Obama have dictatorial ambitions but that they’ve weakened the republics protections so much that later someone who does can ‘flip a switch’ and have a ready molded police state.
Whatever u may say to me about the EU or this or that court case as u did in the wikileaks story last night, were not turning into that, so my patriotic pride in Ireland’s republican/constitutional tradition remains.
So in other words, despite all the impossible to foresee technological advances, Orwell was on the money with the teleboxes. What a man!
It was the system, the beast, the nature of power without check that he was correct on more than anything. Any system like that will find the tools it needs.
So many out there think it can’t happen, were worrying about nothing. But if you told them in 2008-9 someone would be storing every keystroke they made on Facebook and Google and Skype on a massive server complex and could search your name finding everything you ever uttered online, even in private chats, they’d have called that Alex Jones style crazy. Yet here we are. Don’t be naive. Were in a very dangerous world now, and the US is turning into something very dark and unpleasant, step by step, little by littile.
Yes and no I’d say. The US is certainly becoming, if it hasn’t already become, the powerful beast. But this is in no small part associated with the fact that the US is a failed society. Forget what you see on TV shows which present this happy go lucky and surprisingly white image of the US, the place bordering on civil war without even having political motivations to do so. That said, I certainly don’t agree with their police state tactics or their world police outlook, but I wouldn’t let it worry me much either – they can find out all about me, my opinions and political beliefs, my opposition to their state and so forth, but the Irish state won’t extradite me or try me on some jumped up PATRIOT charges. The US is somewhere I look to with pity, but it don’t see much to fear. The UK on the other hand… well we have a tendency to copy them, and that is becoming the definition of an Orwellian style police state at this stage.
Agree re people’s attitudes to it all though, and it’s worrying how malleable public opinion appears to be. Look at the laws and rights infringements they have managed to get through in the US all in the name of national security & safety from non-existent terrorists (4 attacks, across 3 continents in 13 years is not a terrorist threat by any stretch) – even the most cursory glance at history should teach people that we always have more to fear from our own state than any enemy at the gates.
If you saw my original comment on the first wikileaks story you’ll see I’ve total confidence the Irish courts are not going to hand any of us over to a mad US police state.
I’m not worried about them pulling us down with them.
Its just sad to see a country I love and care about dying before my very eyes, abandoning the very things it was built on.
As to the terrorist threat, it’s certainly very real, AlQuada has chemical weapons, they’ve tried to get their hands on nuclear weapons, they are out there, but the NSA searching my facebook does not help find them. If they had a thread on someone and wanna watch them specifically the original system allowed them to get a warrant to do that.
If there’s no way to upgrade firmware, don’t buy it!
With Rasberry Pi and other low cost programmable solutions hitting the market, connected devices should also be upgradable. Of course, if it is upgradable the manufacturer should continue to support the product beyond the warranty period.
Pre Kit-Kat Android springs to mind.
have your say