Why me? asks Tube victim

A father-of-two who survived being pushed under a Tube train has no idea what prompted his attacker to single him out, he said today.

Osei Kwaku, who was on his way to church at the time of the incident at Finsbury Park station on Sunday, said he was convinced he was going to die as he fell from the platform in what police are treating as attempted murder.

Still clearly shaken, Mr Kwaku, who is recovering in hospital from serious burns to his legs, said there was nothing unusual about his attacker and that he had not had any conversation with the stranger.

He said: "There were a lot of other people on the platform. This man had been standing just behind me to the left. I remember feeling both his hands pushing me very hard on my back. There was nothing I could do to prevent it as he pushed me so hard."

Mr Kwaku, 30, who lives in Stockwell and has a wife and two children in his native Ghana, survived because the momentum of the push took him into the well beneath the live rails seconds before the train rattled over him. Police described his escape as "miraculous".

He said: "The train went over my head, pushing me down as my first instinct had been to push myself up. I was dragged along until it stopped. I crawled my way under it and a man on the platform helped me out. It was the most terrible moment. I thought that was it, I thought I'm dead. It's really difficult to understand why he did it and why he chose me."

Mr Kwaku, who works as a valet, was with his younger brother, Gyamfi Frimpong, 27, at the time of the attack. As Mr Kwaku struggled from under the train, his brother gave chase but the attacker, described as black and in his late teens or early twenties, got away.