Bomb suspect held as he tried to buy ferry ticket to Calais
THE London tube bombing suspect was arrested by chance when two unarmed officers spotted him at the Port of Dover as he tried to flee Britain.
The 18-year-old, who is suspected of placing the powerful device on a rush-hour tube train at Parsons Green on Friday morning, was detained by Kent police as he tried to buy a ferry tickettoCalais.
Hours after his arrest, which Scotland Yard described as “significant”, a second suspect was detained in west London.
Following the arrests, British Home Secretary Amber Rudd announced that the terror threat level had been reduced from critical to severe.
Britain had been warned a terrorist attack could be “imminent” after the Parsons Green suspect fled the scene and went on the run.
It was feared he could be planning another bomb attack, or could be part of a wider network of terrorists, but his arrest at Dover suggests he was trying to escape rather than martyr himself in another attack.
Eyewitnesses described seeing the teenager, who is believed to be from Iraq, being spoken to calmly by two officers, before armed police moved in to arrest him.
Daniel Vaselicu (31) said he saw the “young and lightskinned” man being interrogated by two unarmed police officers moments before his arrest.
“My opinion was that he was a homeless guy and that’s why they were interrogating him. He was looking normal, not fighting or worried or concerned,” said the tourist.
Last night the teenager was being questioned at a central London police station on suspicion of planting the bomb in a Lidl bag that injured 29 people.
He is thought to have arrived in Britain three years ago as an orphan refugee, who had travelled across Europe to get to the so-called Jungle camp at Calais.
As an unaccompanied child he was allowed entry to the UK and after being processed through a migrant centre in Kent, was found a home with a foster family in Sunbury-onThames. His foster parents, Ron and Penny Jones, are un- derstood to have taken him in along with another Iraqi refugee.
Last night they were staying with relatives as counter-terror police continued to search their home.
The reduction of the terror threat suggests that Scotland Yard believe the person who planted the Parsons Green device was not part of a wider terror cell. However, detectives will now be seeking to establish if those responsible had travelled to Britain as genuine refugees, or if they were actually members of Isil who had been sent to specifically carry out an attack.
Will Geddes, of security consultant ICP, said he believed those responsible may have “infiltrated” the UK.