Bomb suspect arrested while trying to buy ferry ticket to Calais
THE Parsons Green bombing suspect was arrested by chance when two unarmed officers spotted him at the Port of Dover as he tried to flee the country.
The 18-year-old, who is suspected of placing the powerful device on a rush hour tube train on Friday morning, was detained by Kent police as he tried to purchase a ferry ticket to Calais.
Hours after his arrest, which Scotland Yard described as “significant”, a second suspect was detained in Hounslow, west London.
Following the arrests, Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, announced that the terror threat level had been reduced from critical to severe.
The country had been warned that 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.
The Home Secretary yesterday announced that the government is releasing an additional £24 million for counter-terrorism operations around the country, “particularly to support operations where they are protecting people in public places.”
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 light-skinned” man being interrogated by two unarmed
‘The age of the man arrested is significant… This is a generational struggle that will be difficult to root out’
police officers moments before his arrest.
The tourist said: “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.”
Last night he was being questioned at a central London police station on suspicion of planting the bomb which injured 29 people when it partially detonated at Parsons Green station.
The teenager 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-on-thames. His foster parents, Ron and Penny Jones, are understood 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 Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) who had been sent to specifically carry out an attack.
Will Geddes, of security consultants ICP, said he believed those responsible may have “infiltrated” the UK. He said: ‘’I think the age of the man arrested is significant. We are not talking about people in their 40s or 50s, we are talking about young people. This is a generational struggle that will be difficult to root out.”