Checking on cars at a UK hospital, the jihadi ‘back from Syria’
Mario Ledwith A BRITISH jihadi who left his family to fight for Islamic State is working at an NHS hospital after returning to the UK.
Leaked files exposing the terror group’s network of recruits reveal that Muslim convert Gianluca Tomaselli, 27, allegedly travelled to Syria in 2013 to become a fighter.
Despite links to a jihadi faction that encouraged other so-called ‘Lions’ in the UK to take up arms in the Middle East, the father of two has been able to return from the battlefield to a comfortable life.
Italian-born Tomaselli, who grew up in North London, is working as a parking attendant at a hospital in the capital.
Colleagues at Whipps Cross Hospital in Leytonstone, East London, where Tomaselli issues fines to visitors, said yesterday that they knew nothing about his journey to join the ranks of the barbaric group. The ease of
Returned to a comfortable life
his return, despite being known to MI5, will raise concerns about how closely the authorities are able to monitor home-grown extremists trained by IS.
The security services have been under increased strain in recent years, with hundreds of Britons having reintegrated into society after stints with extreme groups in Iraq and Syria. Tomaselli abandoned his wife and young children to travel to Turkey in 2013, telling some relatives he was trying to find work.
But a cache of IS documents revealing the personal details of thousands of the organisation’s members states that Tomaselli crossed the border into Syria in October of the same year, declaring himself a ‘fighter’. The document gives his date of birth, reveals that he attended university and contains details about how he got into the war-torn country.
Tomaselli is thought to have returned to Britain at the end of 2014 and to now be living with his wife and children in a council house in East London.
He converted to Islam along with his two sisters when his mother married a Somalian man after separating from their father. But he became estranged from his mother and stepfather following a family fallout surrounding his wedding in 2010.
His mother, Stefana Graziano, said she was stunned by claims that her son had entered Syria and said relatives did not know how he developed an interest in radical Islam. ‘I’m under stress about this situation, I don’t know anything about these things,’ she said.
Tomaselli has been linked to a group called Rawat alTawheed, which is made up of British combatants and has close ties to IS. The British jihadi faction has posted a series of video messages issuing threats to attack Britain and America.
Tomaselli bears a striking similarity to a fighter using the name Abu Abdullah al-Britani, a similar name to that on his entry in the leaked IS files. Abu Abdullah appeared in several propaganda videos wearing a balaclava and describing life in Syria while brandishing an AK-47.
A spokesman for Barts Health NHS Trust, which runs Whipps Cross Hospital, said: ‘The safety of patients and staff is our number one priority and we are seeking assurances from [car park operator] CP Plus that individuals contracted to work at our sites are subject to the appropriate vetting procedures.’
CP Plus said: ‘We will co-operate fully with the authorities and help with any inquiries.’