London terror attack: Police piece together Khalid Masood’s life before radicalisation

A 58-YEAR-OLD man is now the sole person still in police custody in relation to the Westminster attack after two people were released without charge.

Floral tributes and a photograph of PC Keith Palmer lay outside the Houses of Parliament. Picture: Getty

• Masood: ‘I want to kill someone’
• How Masood became a radicalised jihadist
• The senseless toll of terror attack
• London terror attack ‘sends a shiver down your spine’
• The pained faces of London’s innocent victims

A 58-YEAR-OLD man is now the sole person still in police custody in relation to the Westminster attack after two people were released without charge.

Police said a 27-year-old man from Birmingham, who was earlier in custody, and a 39-year-old woman, who was on bail, have been released with no further action.

Eleven people were initially arrested over the incident.

As well as the 58-year-old in custody, a 32-year-old woman remains on police bail.

All others have been released with no further action.

The news came as the terrorist, Khalid Masood, who killed four people outside Britain’s Parliament, was in Saudi Arabia three times and taught English there.

A Saudi Embassy statement released late Friday said that Khalid Masood taught English in Saudi Arabia from November 2005 to November 2006 and again from April 2008 to April 2009.

The embassy said that he had a work visa. It said he returned for six days in March 2015 on a trip booked through an approved travel agent. The Saudi Embassy said that he wasn’t tracked by the country’s security services and didn’t have a criminal record there.

KILLER USED WHAT’S APP IN FINAL MINUTES

Masood used an encrypted messaging service in the final minute before he launched his deadly attack in the heart of London, raising further suggestions he may not have acted alone.

Masood, 52, was active on internet-based messaging and phone application Whatsapp at 2.37pm, seconds before he drove onto Westminster Bridge, mowing down 50 people and killing three, before stabbing a policeman to death.

Khalid Masood before he was radicalised. Picture: Supplied

The British-born jihadi, a Muslim convert who had previously been investigated as a “peripheral’’ figure by MI5 over concerns about extremist behaviour, was initially thought to be a lone-wolf attacker.

However police have now conducted a series of raids on 21 properties across the UK, arrested 10 people and seized 2700 items as evidence, including computer data.

PARTNER SEIZED IN RAIDS

One of those arrested is thought to be Masood’s partner, a 39-year-old woman named as Rohey Hydara.

Six of those people have now been released from custody with no further police action pending, including, according to the British media, Ms Hydara.

Police remained outside the home where Masood’s mother, Janet Ajao and stepfather Phillip lived in remote southwest Wales, but are thought to be there to provide protection, rather than treating the couple as suspects.

Detectives released a mugshot of Masood as they continued to urge the public to contact them to help them fill in gaps in the knowledge of Masood, who used up to five aliases, had spent time in three different jails, and lived at homes across London and Birmingham.

INSIDE MASOOD’S LIFE

Photographs also appeared in the media of Masood, under the name Ajao, as a schoolboy. He had appeared in court some years ago under the name Adrian Elms. There is confusion over his various names but police say he was born Adrian Russell Ajao. British media reports that his birth certificate carried the name of his mother, Elms, who was 17 at the time of his birth, but that she married Phillip Ajao two years later, and he is listed as Masood’s father. He has also used several Islamic names.

Khalid Masood was thought to have been born Adrian Ajao. Picture: Supplied

Masood left behind a trail of broken ­relationships before launching his attack.

He caused fury from the mother of his first daughter after getting the youngster to convert to Islam, which saw her covered from head to toe in a burka.

Masood’s troubled past involves two lovers, one wife and at least three children — with the Muslim convert’s new faith at the centre of it all.

Masood met his first partner Jane Harvey while working together at Aaron Chemicals in Bodiam, East Sussex, in the late 1980s.

In 1992, they celebrated the arrival of their first daughter, Andi Jay, before Teegan ­Adrienne followed six years later.

MASOOD’S FRIENDS SPEAK OUT

Masood dreamed of killing someone and was a massacre waiting to happen, a former friend has said.

Lee Lawrence, 47, revealed the terrorist once held a knife to his throat.

Woodsman Lee said: “He was saying, ‘I want some f****** blood, I want to kill someone.”

Mr Lee added: “The knife was in his pocket all the time.

“He would never be without his knife.”

Mr Lee knew Masood by his birth name, Adrian Elms, when he lived in Northiam, East Sussex.

He said Elms held a knife to his throat after slashing the landlord of his local in July 2000.

Mr Lee, who gave Elms his first job as a woodcutter, said: “I tried to calm him down but his eyes were rolling, he was off his head.

“He put the knife up against my throat. I grabbed his arm and pushed him away.

“He started saying, ‘What have I done, what am I doing? I’m getting help. I just want blood, I dream about killing someone’.”

POLICE CALL FOR HELP

Senior anti-terror officer Acting Deputy Commissioner Mark Rowley from Scotland Yard urged the public to contact police if they knew where Masood had been in recent times, and who his associates were.

“Our determination is to find out if he acted totally alone inspired by terrorist propaganda or if others encouraged or supported or directed him,’’ he said.

Police are still trying to determine whether Khalid Masood acted alone. Picture: AP

Terror group Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack but it is not yet known if they were in direct contact with Masood, a career criminal and thug, or is he self-radicalised using propaganda material online.

Masood was shot dead by police at the gates of Westminster, but his rampage claimed four lives — American tourist Kurt Cochran, 54, retired window cleaner Leslie Rhodes, 75, and mother-of-two Aysha Frade, who all died after being struck by Masood’s speeding car on Westminster Bridge.

Police Constable Keith Palmer, 48, was stabbed to death when he tried to stop Masood approaching Parliament.

Prince Charles on Saturday visited some of the 31 people who were treated in London hospitals, praising medical staff for their efforts in responding to the attack.

Faith leaders, including Muslim imams, made speeches outside Westminster urging unity and renouncing Masood’s crimes.

Prince Charles of Wales, meets nursing staff after meeting with paramedics and support staff who assisted those injured. Picture: AFP

The number of armed police on patrol in London has been doubled since Wednesday’s attacks, while armoured police vans have been sent out on the streets in a show of strength.

The Metropolitan Police have released the names of three of their officers who were run down by Masood on Westminster Bridge after attending a commemoration service at the new police complex nearby.

They are Constables Kris Aves, who was seriously injured, and colleagues Bradley Bryant and Roger Smith.