Westminster killer ‘was radicalised in last year’
WESTMINSTER terror attacker Khalid Masood was radicalised in Birmingham, probably within the past 12 months, a well-placed source has told The Mail on Sunday.
He first came to the attention of police eight years ago, when it is thought he was living in Luton, and his mobile phone number was found in the phone contacts of a known extremist being investigated at the time.
Masood was dismissed as a peripheral figure – and detectives believe he chose the path to violent terrorism much more recently.
As a result, counter-terrorism detectives are focusing on Masood’s activities and acquaintances in Birmingham, where he lived for the past two years.
The source said the Westminster attack – in which Masood, 52, murdered three civilians and police officer Keith Palmer, 48 – is increasingly looking like a ‘lone-wolf’ atrocity.
The revelations came yesterday as police confirmed all 12 people arrested in the wake of the March 22 attack had been released, and that no further action would be taken against them.
Masood, a convert to Islam, lived in at least two addresses in Birmingham.
His last home was a shabby flat above a convenience store in the Hagley Road area of the city.
The source said: ‘The radicalisation happened in the past year or so – that’s why Birmingham has been the focus of the police investigation.’
In all, police have searched nine properties in Birmingham, three in London and others in Brighton, Surrey, Wales and Manchester.
Of the 12 suspects arrested, seven were from Birmingham.
It is believed that Masood mixed with the city’s Salafi Muslim community, and may have attended its mosques and study centres.
The Salafis are a sect of hardline Muslims who follow an austere form of Islam practised in Saudi Arabia.
They believe in strict sharia law, including the stoning of adulterers and capital punishments for homosexuals.
The source said: ‘Whether he was following a charismatic sheik there, or a study group, will come out in the wash soon.’
Khalid Mahmood, the Labour MP for Perry Barr, said: ‘This couldn’t have happened without people supporting him or radicalising him. What connections did he have? Who was he speaking to? All these things have to be considered.’
This weekend, it emerged that Masood studied economics and economic history at the University of Sussex as a mature student, and attained a 2:1 in 1997.
One former friend, who did not want to be named, said: ‘He was a bit of a Jack-the-lad, very social and very hardworking. He wasn’t stupid by any stretch of the imagination. I was completely shocked when I saw the news.’