London attacker a family man: Neighbours

LONDON: Neighbours of one of the suspected assailants in the London stabbings remembered him as a friendly family man and gym aficionado nicknamed “Abz”, who was seen with the van used in the attack just hours before.

Located in the multi-ethnic area of Barking, the flat where British media reported the man lived was raided by police on Sunday and an AFP photographer saw women in headscarves being taken out with their faces covered.

“We saw him many, many times around here,” said Salahudeen, a 40-year-old driving instructor, who lives near the ground-floor flat in a modern-looking apartment block in the east London suburb.

“He used to be friendly but suddenly we saw his attitude changing, he wasn’t acting as normal. He wasn’t aggressive, he used to chat but lately, he was just ‘hi’ and ‘bye’,” he said.

Salahudeen said the man had two children, a boy and a baby girl.

“One is around three years old and the girl was just born two weeks ago,” he said, adding that he would see him carrying the boy on his shoulders and playing football in the park.

Salahudeen said the man used to wear ankle-length camouflage trousers, similar to the ones seen in a picture of one of the bodies of the three attackers shot dead by police on Saturday night.

The attackers mowed down pedestrians on London Bridge with a hired white van before jumping out and going around bars and restaurants in the area wearing fake suicide vests and stabbing revellers at random.

They were shot dead in a hail of police gunfire.

Police have so far released no details about them. They said they had arrested 11 people – five men and six women aged between 19 and 60 – at the flat.

“We call him ‘Abz’ at the local gym,” another neighbour, Michael Mimbo, 25, said.

According to a report yesterday by RTE, Ireland’s national broadcaster, one of the three attackers shot dead was carrying an Irish identity card and had lived in Dublin.

Citing police sources, RTE said the man is believed to have been from Morocco and married to a Scottish woman. – AFP