Attackers profiled
Priests in Fez preached strict Islam but move to UK capital was the key to creating a killer
BORN and brought up in the Moroccan city of Fez, Youseff Zaghba was often exposed to clerics who preached a strict interpretation of Islam.
But it was only when the 22-year-old restaurant worker moved to the UK that he became radicalised, embarking on a path that would eventually lead him to taking part in Saturday’s terrorist atrocity at London Bridge and Borough Market.
With a Moroccan father and Italian mother, Zaghba frequently travelled between the two countries, but when his parents split in 2015, he moved to east London.
Settling in Ilford, in the same neighbourhood as hate preacher Anjem Choudary, Zaghba began working at a Pakistani-run restaurant. It was there, claims his mother, Valeria Collina, that he fell under the spell of extremists, who exploited his loneliness and persuaded him to devote his life to jihad.
Last night his mother revealed how he had phoned her last Thursday in what she now realises was his farewell call. She said: “Even though he didn’t say anything specific I heard it in his voice. He was all worn out inside.”
She said he had changed after moving to London where he had fallen under the malign influence of extremists.
“The area where he lived in London was not very nice. I was there and I didn’t like it. He went around with the wrong people,” she explained.
She also blamed the internet for her son’s behaviour. She previously told investigators: “I no longer recognise him. He’s on the computer all day, looking at very strange things.”
Zaghba is thought to have met his fellow terrorists in the Ilford area where he was living as he tried to find work in the hospitality industry.
On a Linkedin page he claimed to work in housekeeping for the London Marriott Hotel at Regent’s Park, but a spokesman for the company insisted there was no record of him ever having been employed there.
His mother said rather than a hotel, he had worked at a restaurant in the city, where he had met some unsavoury characters. In March last year, encouraged by his new radical associates, he decided to travel to Syria and join the ranks of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil). Perhaps realising the journey might be difficult if he set off from Britain, he headed for Italy first, spending time with his mother at her home in the picturesque village of Fagnano near Bologna.
Neighbours in the village said he was polite and never showed signs of his extremism. Franco Bortolini, 77, a neighbour, said: “I would never have imagined something like this happening. He was normal. He would say ‘buongiorno’ and ‘buonasera’.”
After a few days, he told his mother he was off to Rome, but instead made his way to Bologna airport, where – carrying just a rucksack and a one-way ticket – he attempted to board a flight to Istanbul. He was stopped by Italian security officials, who noted that he was acting in an “agitated” manner.
When he was questioned about the purpose of his journey, he told them: “I’m going to be a terrorist.”
Police contacted his mother who said
‘The area where he lived in London was not very nice. He went around with the wrong people’
she had been worried about him because he had been talking about jihad.
An Italian diplomatic source said police had found jihadi material when they seized his mobile phone but nothing that constituted a criminal offence.
He was not arrested but his details were passed to security officials in the UK and he was added to a Europeanwide list of “foreign fighters” at risk of being radicalised.
Despite this he was able to return to Britain, heading back to Ilford, where he met up with Redouane and Butt.
Last night his mother, who is a Muslim convert, expressed her deep condolences to the victims of the London Bridge terror attack. In an interview with an Italian newspaper, she said: “Only a mother can understand the pain of another mother.
“I know that nothing will be enough but I’m ready to do everything I can to bring them peace. We need to fight the ideology of Isil and I will do that with all my strength.”
Daniele Ruscigno, the local mayor, said: “We are totally shocked by what happened. Nowhere is immune from the phenomenon of terrorism. If the family had been more integrated, perhaps this would not have happened.”