A white supremacist who killed 10 people in a US supermarket rampage earlier called for the murder of Sadiq Khan.
Payton Gendron, 18, branded the London mayor a "high profile enemy" and a "Muslim invader" in a chilling 180-page "manifesto".
The mass shooter used a rifle to spray 13 people - killing 10 - at a Tops Friendly Market supermarket in Buffalo, New York.
Authorities said the massacre was motivated by “racial hatred”.
Gendron, from Conklin, about 200 miles south-east of Buffalo, appeared in Buffalo City court on murder charges hours later. He pleaded not guilty.
The thoughts and prayers of London are with the people of Buffalo and all the families who have lost loved ones in this dreadful attack. Our diversity is our strength. Hate will never win.
— Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan (@MayorofLondon) May 15, 2022
For at least two minutes, he broadcast the sickening shooting on streaming platform Twitch in which he appeared to calmly target people as they cowered behind shelves.
It is believed he published a disturbing manifesto online before arriving at the market in military fatigues, a bullet-proof vest and a helmet camera.
The document, circulated widely online, purports to outline the attacker’s racist, anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic beliefs, including his desire to remove all non-whites from the US.
He repeatedly refers to the UK and in one section, titled “Kill high-profile enemies”, he calls for the London mayor, whom he describes as an “ethnic replacement” of British people, to be killed.
He claims Mr Khan, who visited the US last week, is a “Muslim invader” and his murder would be an ideal start to the “white rebirth”.
In a tweet on Sunday, Mr Khan wrote: “The thoughts and prayers of London are with the people of Buffalo and all the families who have lost loved ones in this dreadful attack. Our diversity is our strength. Hate will never win.”
It comes after Mr Khan revealed he has suffered a rise in racial abuse since Donald Trump was elected president of the United States in 2017.
Speaking at Stanford University during a five-day trade mission to the US, he said: “During those four years he was president, that led to me having police protection and a lot of racial abuse”.
“In the last year of him being president, once he was banned from Twitter, I received the least racial abuse of any time over five years.
“On the one hand, social media – Facebook Twitter – great. On the other hand, that’s the consequence of lack of control and lack of regulation.”
