Skateboard hero of London Bridge may become a saint after he died using his board to save two people

The family of the ‘skateboard hero’ of the 2017 London Bridge terror attacks have launched a campaign for him to be canonized as a saint, with backing from the Roman Catholic Church.

Ignacio Echeverría, 39, was passing through Borough Market, near London Bridge, on June 3, 2017, when he saw a man attacking a police officer and then a woman.

The former banker used his skateboard to fend off the attacker and distracted him as other people fled to safety, before taking on another terrorist who was assaulting a police officer.

Spanish-born Mr Echeverría was then stabbed twice in the back by a third terrorist and sadly later died of his wounds.

Now, his family are seeking formal recognition of him as a saint, following an outpouring of tributes to his bravery in Spain and Britain, The Times reports.

His relatives were first approached by Juan Antonio Martínez Camino, the auxiliary bishop of Madrid, to seek canonization following an open letter from Pope Francis after the attack.

The Pope wrote: ‘The heroic offering of life, suggested and sustained by charity, expresses a true, complete and exemplary imitation of Christ and, therefore, deserves the admiration that the community of the faithful usually reserves for those who have voluntarily accepted martyrdom of blood or have heroically exercised Christian virtues.’

He went on to say that those who ‘offer their lives voluntarily and freely for others’ are worthy of distinction.

Mr Echeverría has already received several posthumous honours, including the Spanish Order of Civil Merit and Britain’s George Medal, which was bestowed on his parents by the Queen. 

An association dedicated to promoting his path to sainthood was set up last November, according to Spanish newspaper El Mundo.

Mr Echeverría studied law at the Complutense University in Madrid, followed by the Sorbonne in Paris and later worked investigating money laundering at HSBC in London.

His Catholic faith is said to have strongly influenced his life and he volunteered for the Catholic Action group.

A fan of skateboarding since he was a child, pictures and videos of Mr Echeverria featured in many Spanish media outlets after his death and two skateboard parks have also been named after him in Madrid and Alicante.

On June 3, 2017, Terrorists Khuram Butt, 27, Rachid Redouane, 30, and Youssef Zaghba, 22, ploughed into pedestrians on London Bridge and then attacked random members of the public with pink 12in ceramic knives.

In what was later described as a ‘chilling gesture’, Butt walked over to a running tap during the attack, ran his knife under it to clean off the blood and wiped it, first on one side of his face and then the other.

Zaghba and Butt discarded their jackets to reveal fake suicide vests before they confronted unarmed police officers shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’.

The onslaught came to an end after less than 10 minutes when the attackers were shot dead by City of London Police marksmen.

Mr Echeverria was the last of eight fatalities in the attack which also left 48 people seriously injured.

Christine Archibald, 30, and Xavier Thomas, 45, died after being struck by the van on the bridge.

Alexandre Pigeard, 26, Sara Zelenak, 21, Kirsty Boden, 28, Sebastien Belanger, 36, and James McMullan, 32, were stabbed near the Boro Bistro on the South Bank.

The attack bore ‘striking similarities’ to two later incidents involving known extremists.

On November 29, 2019, five people were stabbed, two fatally, at Fishmongers’ Hall by convicted terrorist Usman Khan, who had been released from prison on licence.

On February 2, 2020, two people were injured in Streatham by knifeman Sudesh Amman, who had previously been jailed for having and sharing terrorist documents in 2018.