Moroccan pastry chef had an Irish identity card
ONE of the London Bridge terrorists paid a final visit to his baby daughter hours before the attack .
Rachid Redouane, 30, went to a housing unit for vulnerable mothers to see his 20-month-old child Amina and estranged wife.
Three hours later Redouane, a Moroccan pastry chef, died in a hail of bullets with a fake bomb belt strapped to his waist and an Irish ID card in his pocket.
Last night, Scotland Yard continued to piece together Redouane’s movements since arriving in Europe from North Africa.
Despite being a ‘clean skin’ with no known links to terrorism, investigators are understood to be sceptical of his claims to be from Morocco via Libya.
They are still trying to piece together his movements, including his use of the alias of 25-yearold Rachid El-Khdar.
Redouane appears to have secured his stay in Britain by marrying London-born Charisse O’Leary, 38, in Dublin.
Friends said she travelled to Ireland around three years ago after he moved to Rathmines in south Dublin when his visa ran out.
They said Redouane tried to convert her to Islam, but she refused and they had a ‘volatile’ relationship. He returned to Britain about nine months ago.
In the early hours of Sunday, Ms O’Leary, now using his surname, was arrested at gunpoint after the doors to her block of flats in Barking, East London, were blown off.
Eyewitnesses described how she shouted ‘don’t shoot!’ as she was dragged sobbing from the block of flats.
Her toddler daughter was taken away by social workers.
Neighbour Siobhan Thomson said Redouane lived at the property until ‘two or three months ago’ when they separated, but visited regularly.
Another neighbour said Redouane was seen at the block at 7pm on Saturday, four hours before the attack.
‘Armed police officers knocked on my door at 7am and warned me there would be a loud bang – then seconds later it sounded like a bomb had gone off,’ she said.
‘I saw them taking Charisse away, she had blood running down her face because she’d obviously been injured in the blast. She was very upset, sobbing and crying out for her baby. It was extremely upsetting to see them being taken in separate cars.
‘Her ex-boyfriend Rachid used to live with them but moved out a few weeks ago.
‘He did return at 6pm on Saturday because I saw he’d signed in on the visitors’ book but I’m not sure why.
‘Charisse is a lovely woman and wouldn’t harm a fly. Rachid keeps himself to himself and I know he is very religious.’
But friends said she ‘hated’ her husband who she accused of beating and bullying her during their turbulent months together.
Just weeks ago, Ms O’Leary wrote angrily online how Redouane refused to visit Amina, choosing instead to go swimming with friends. One of her former colleagues at a care home said: ‘There’s no way she’d have been involved. She hated him in the end. He was a horrible person. She didn’t say what happened but it seemed to me like it was domestic violence.’
The carer added: ‘She smokes, she drinks. She wouldn’t have converted to Islam. She dressed normally, in Western clothes.’
Ms O’Leary left her full-time job at the care home around two years ago, the woman said, when she travelled to Ireland to be with her husband whose ‘visa had run out’.
‘He was from Morocco or somewhere like that and he’d been sent back,’ the ex-colleague added.
‘He went to Ireland while he waited for a visa and she went there because she hadn’t seen him for ages.’