Killer’s UK university chief raised terror fears three years ago

THE head of the British university where one of the easter Sunday bombers studied predicted that one of his graduates might turn to terror and ‘do something daft’, it emerged yesterday.

Julius Weinberg, vice-chancellor of Kingston University, was reacting in 2016 after the then prime minister, David cameron, attacked it as a haven for islamic fanatics.

Mr cameron accused the Surrey campus, which had hosted several controversial preachers, of giving extremists ‘the oxygen they need to flourish’.

Professor Weinberg cited the importance of free speech, vowing he would ‘not stop offering a platform to so-called hate speakers’.

He also said the Prevent strategy, a Government scheme requiring college staff to monitor students for signs of radicalisation, was counter-productive, adding: ‘With 50 per cent of students coming from a black and ethnic minority background, there is a chance that a Kingston graduate does something daft. if that happens, i know exactly what the Daily Mail will say.’

Five days ago, abdul lathief Jameel Mohamed, 36, who studied at the university from 2006 to 2007, blew himself up at the Tropical inn in colombo.

Professor Weinberg, now chairman of the education watchdog ofsted, became vicechancellor of Kingston University in 2011.

Kingston was under scrutiny for its tolerance of ‘hate speakers’ following several years of hosting extremists. But Professor Weinberg argued it was his job to protect freedom of speech. Writing in The Guardian in 2016, he said: ‘i want my students to be faced with a variety of opinions. it would be wrong to bar a speaker because the government of the day does not like their views.’

investigators are probing whether the seeds of Mohamed’s terror beliefs were sown during his student days in Britain.

He enrolled on an aerospace engineering degree at the asian aviation centre in Sri lanka, in which students spend their third and final year at Kingston University. aged 23, he arrived in the UK on January 1, 2006, and returned to Sri lanka in September 2007. He also visited Britain in 2008.

During Mohamed’s first year in Surrey, Shakeel Begg, an imam at lewisham and Kent islamic centre spoke at the university, telling students: ‘You want to make jihad? Very good... go to Palestine and fight the terrorists, fight the Zionists.’ it is not known whether Mohamed heard him talk.

asif Mohammed Hanif, who studied at Kingston, blew himself up at Mike’s Place, a waterfront bar in Tel aviv, in 2003.

Former student Mohammed Yasar Gulzar was suspected of flying to Britain from Pakistan to help control a plot to blow up passenger jets. Gulzar, from Birmingham, was a friend of rashid rauf, the fixer for the london 7/7 bombers in 2005.

Kingston graduate Walla abdel rahman, from west london, joined the terror group al-Shabaab in Somalia in 2009.

ofsted said Professor Weinberg was on holiday and was not available to comment.