Downing Street suspect was ‘White Beast’ jihadist’s friend
THE terror suspect arrested with a bag full of knives in Westminster was close friends with a British jihadist who died fighting for al-Shabaab, The Sunday
Telegraph can disclose. Mohammed Khalid Omar Ali, 27, who is in custody for a suspected attempted attack on Downing Street, travelled to Gaza in a charity convoy with Thomas Evans, who was given the name the White Beast.
The pair, who were both in their early twenties at the time, were part of a seven-week aid mission in 2010 with the charity Road to Hope.
Last night Evans’s mother, Sally Evans, said she believed the trip, which saw them stuck in Libya for a time, radicalised her son.
Thomas Evans was shot while fighting for the African terrorist group, which has links to al-Qaeda, in Kenya in 2015 at the age of 25.
A year earlier security reports revealed he and a woman believed to be “White Widow” Samantha Lewthwaite – the world’s most wanted woman – were involved in an atrocity which left 70 people dead.
“After he returned from that [Gaza] trip he began interpreting Islam more strongly. He was upset about what he had seen there,” Mrs Evans said.
“He was already a Muslim but he became more radicalised on his return. I do feel that was the case.
“It needs to be investigated. I’m shocked they were both on the same trip.”
Within months of his return she reported him to the authorities over radicalisation fears.
Last night detectives from Scotland Yard were continuing to question Mr Ali on suspicion of offences under the Terrorism Act and possession of offensive weapons after he was detained by armed police in Whitehall on Thursday afternoon. Police seized at least three knives which Mr Ali had been carrying in a rucksack after stopping him on the corner of Parliament Square in an “intelligence-led” swoop.
His arrest comes just a month after Khalid Masood, previously known as Adrian Ajao, stabbed a police officer to death after driving a car into pedestrians, killing four, on Westminster Bridge.
Mr Ali, who was born overseas but is a British national, was living in Tottenham, north London, and had been under surveillance as the subject of an anti-terrorism investigation.
He is reported to have spent several years in Afghanistan and had only recently returned. It is understood that the suspect’s family had become concerned about his behaviour and reported him to the authorities several weeks ago.
Hours after his arrest, an anti-terrorism operation to thwart another unconnected plot saw a 21-year-old woman shot in Willesden, north-west London and six others arrested in a series of raids.
One was Mohamed Amoudi, 21, a Yemeni-born British citizen who studied physics at Queen Mary University in east London and had previously been detained on suspicion of travelling to Syria.