‘Pastry chef ’ married Briton despite asylum refusal
Morocco-born terrorist who fought Gaddafi continued living in UK and had Irish ID card
ONE of the London terrorists was refused asylum in the UK but was able to continue living in the country for years, it was disclosed last night.
Rachid Redouane’s plea for asylum was rejected in 2009, but he is believed to have remained in the country before going on to live in Ireland three years later. Once there, he married his British girlfriend and was granted a European Union residence card that allowed him to apply for a permit to remain in Britain when he left Ireland.
Irish authorities are reportedly investigating whether he used the arrangement as a “back door” into the UK.
Redouane fought in the Libyan revolution against Col Muammar Gaddafi and joined a militia which went on to send jihadist fighters to Syria.
Rachid Redouane travelled to the North African country in 2011 and then went back while living in Ireland and the UK, Libyan security and diplomatic sources said.
Authorities in the country said they were urgently checking whether he could have come into contact with Salman Abedi, the Manchester bomber who also regularly travelled to Libya. Redouane, who also used the name Rashid Elkhadar, was Morocco-born, but had a Libyan father and obtained a fake Libyan passport while the country was in turmoil after Gaddafi was toppled, the sources said.
While in the country, he is believed to have fought with the Tripoli-based Liwa al Ummah unit. After the revolution, the unit went on to send foreign fighters to join the jihad against Bashar al-assad in Syria.
Many of the Libyans who travelled went on to fight alongside al-qaeda extremists in Syria.
Last week Libyan security officials told The Daily Telegraph that Abedi, a British Libyan, had also fought in the revolution and had links to the al-battar battalion which has Isil ties.
British counter-terrorism sources said they had found no evidence of links between the London and Manchester attacks.
Redouane, who was 30, is believed to have moved to the UK in 2006 and lived in Harrow, north-west London. He is thought to have had a series of kitchen jobs before moving to Manchester in 2009.
He moved to Ireland after unsuccessfully seeking asylum in the UK and married his girlfriend, a care worker from Dagenham called Charisse O’leary, in Dublin in November 2012.
The pair lived in the Rathmines area of Dublin and Redouane was granted an Irish ID card that allowed him to repeatedly travel back to the UK, before the couple eventually moved to Barking in east London. Redouane, who listed his profession as a pastry chef, is believed to have worked in the kitchens of the care home where his wife was employed.
His wife never took her husband’s faith and friends said the pair split after arguing about how to raise their young daughter.
Redouane reportedly objected to his daughter watching television or taking dancing lessons.
It was reported last night that Redouane was also a follower of the banned al-muhajiroun extremist group, alongside the attack ringleader Khuram Butt.
Redouane and Butt lived a few hundred yards from each other in Barking, east London, while the third attacker, Youssef Zaghba, lived in neighbouring Ilford.