Police arrested a man over a stabbing attack in west London that left one person dead and two injured today, the force said, while ruling out a terrorist motive.

British media reported that the suspect was an Afghan national, while the Home Office confirmed only that he was a foreigner legally resident in the United Kingdom since 2022.

London police said in a statement that emergency services treated a 49-year-old man who died at the scene in the western suburb of Uxbridge.

Another man aged 45 was severely wounded and a boy of 14 suffered injuries that were not life-threatening, it said.

Police Chief Superintendent Jill Horsfall in the statement called it “a shocking and senseless act of violence”.

The statement said police were not treating the attack as a terrorist incident and were investigating whether there were any links between the suspect and the victims.

The Home Office said the suspect entered Britain in a truck in 2020 and was granted asylum in 2022.

It said he was not living in a hotel or other accommodation provided by the authorities, as falsely claimed on social media.

Hotels housing asylum-seekers have been targeted by angry demonstrations over recent months after an Ethiopian man sexually assaulted a teenage girl and a woman.

The man was later convicted in that case, which added to anti-immigrant sentiment that has fuelled protests, riots and inflammatory social media messaging in Britain in recent months.

- Agence France-Presse