By Agence France-Presse

A suspected terrorist who tried to mow down cyclists and police with his car outside parliament in 2018 “intended to kill as many people as possible,” a London court heard Monday.

Salih Khater launched a “premeditated and deliberate attack” when he steered the vehicle at his targets in Westminster last August, a prosecutor said at the start of his trial.

The Sudanese-born British national failed to hit anyone in the incident and ended up crashing the car into security barriers outside the Houses of Parliament.

“Using his car in the way that he did, driving in the manner and direction he did, the prosecution alleged that it is obvious that he intended to kill as many people as possible,” Alison Morgan told the Old Bailey courtroom.

“His actions were not a mistake or as a result of some kind of mechanical error to his vehicle,” the prosecutor added.

“They were deliberate and designed to cause maximum death and injury.”

The reason for the 30-year-old’s actions have remained unclear but the location and targeting of police officers suggested a “terrorist motive”, according to Morgan.

However, the defendant is facing two counts of attempted murder and two alternative charges of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm, and not terrorism charges.

At the outset of the trial jurors watched CCTV footage of Khater driving his silver Ford Fiesta at cyclists before crashing into barriers protecting parliament as two uniformed police officers dived out of the way.

They heard Khater — who was born in Sudan and granted asylum in Britain in 2010 — had driven around the area the previous night, before sleeping in his car nearby for several hours.

Morgan described how the defendant’s mood had altered in the months before the attack, and that he had shown signs of “paranoia” about being the target of British intelligence services.

Khater, who lived in Birmingham, had also unsuccessfully applied for a fast-track British passport the day before the attack, she added.