With the support of the Roman Catholic Church, the family of the’skateboard hero’ of the 2017 London Bridge terror attacks has launched a campaign to have him canonized as a saint.
On June 3, 2017, Ignacio Echeverra, 39, was walking through Borough Market near London Bridge when he witnessed a man assaulting a police officer and then a woman.
Before taking on another terrorist who was assaulting a police officer, the former banker used his skateboard to ward off the attacker and distract him while other people fled to safety.
Mr Echeverra, who was born in Spain, was then stabbed twice in the back by a third terrorist and died as a result of his injuries.
Following an outpouring of accolades to his bravery in Spain and the United Kingdom, his family is now pursuing formal recognition as a saint, according to The Times.
Following an open letter from Pope Francis following the attack, his relatives were approached by Juan Antonio Martnez Camino, the auxiliary bishop of Madrid, to pursue canonization.
‘The heroic offering of life, suggested and sustained by charity, expresses a true, complete, and exemplary imitation of Christ and, thus, deserves the admiration that the faithful community usually reserves for those who have voluntarily accepted blood martyrdom or have heroically exercised Christian virtues,’ wrote the Pope.
He went on to remark that people who ‘give their lives freely and voluntarily for others’ are deserving of special recognition.
Mr. Echeverra has already won a number of posthumous awards, including the Spanish Order of Civil Merit and the George Medal, which the Queen conferred on his parents.
Mr. Echeverra studied law at the Complutense University in Madrid, then at the Sorbonne in Paris, before working for HSBC in London as a money laundering investigator.
His Catholic faith is considered to have had a significant impact on his life, and he volunteered for the Catholic Action organization.
According to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, an organization committed to advancing his route to sainthood was founded last November.
Mr Echeverria, who has been a skating aficionado since he was a child, was featured in several Spanish media outlets after his death, and two skateboard parks in Madrid and Alicante were named after him.
Terrorists Khuram Butt, 27, Rachid Redouane, 30, and Youssef Zaghba, 22, plowed into people on London Bridge on June 3, 2017, before attacking random members of the public with pink 12-inch ceramic knives.
During the attack, Butt moved up to a running tap, passed his knife under water to clean off the blood, and wiped it, first on one side of his face, then the other, in what was later described as a “chilling gesture.”
Before confronting unarmed police officers chanting ‘Allahu Akbar,’ Zaghba and Butt removed their jackets to show phony suicide vests.
After less than 10 minutes, the attackers were shot and killed by City of London Police marksmen.
Mr. Echeverria was the eighth and final victim of the incident, which left 48 people gravely injured.
After being struck by the van on the bridge, Christine Archibald, 30, and Xavier Thomas, 45, perished.
Stabbings occurred at the Boro Bistro on the South Bank, with Alexandre Pigeard, 26, Sara Zelenak, 21, Kirsty Boden, 28, Sebastien Belanger, 36, and James McMullan, 32.
The attack had “disturbing parallels” to two subsequent events involving known extremists.
On November 29, 2019, convicted terrorist Usman Khan, who had been released on parole, attacked five people, two of whom died, at Fishmongers’ Hall.
Sudesh Amman, a knifeman who had previously been sentenced for holding and disseminating terrorist documents in 2018, injured two persons in Streatham on February 2, 2020.