Sri Lankan suicide bomber ‘was radicalised by Anjem Choudary’

Sri Lankan suicide bomber ‘was radicalised by notorious hate preacher Anjem Choudary while in London’

  • Abdul Lathief Jameel Mohamed, 37, was the link between Islamic State and the bombers, according to security services
  •  A security official said Mohamed was ‘completely radicalised’ and that he attended the sermons of Anjem Choudary
  • Mohamed tried to blow up the luxury Taj Samudra hotel in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo on Easter Sunday

One of the Sri Lankan suicide bombers was allegedly radicalised by hate preacher Anjem Choudary.

Abdul Lathief Jameel Mohamed, 37, was the link between Islamic State and the bombers, according to security services.

A security official told the BBC: ‘He was completely radicalised and supported the extremist ideology. I tried to reason with him.

‘When I asked him how he got into this… he said that he attended the sermons of the radical British preacher Anjem Choudary in London. He said he met him during the sermons.’

Abdul Lathief Jameel Mohamed, 37, was believed to have been radicalised by Anjem Choudary when he stayed in London

British-educated Sri Lanka suicide bomber Abdul Lathief Jameel Mohamed (pictured as a school boy)

British-educated Sri Lanka suicide bomber Abdul Lathief Jameel Mohamed (pictured as a school boy)

Abdul Lathief Jameel Mohamed, the Sri Lanka terrorist whose bomb failed to go off - before he sits next to diners equally unaware they've cheated death

Abdul Lathief Jameel Mohamed, the Sri Lanka terrorist whose bomb failed to go off – before he sits next to diners equally unaware they’ve cheated death

Security personnel inspect the interior of St Sebastian's Church in Negombo, a day after the church was hit in series of bomb blasts targeting churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka

Security personnel inspect the interior of St Sebastian’s Church in Negombo, a day after the church was hit in series of bomb blasts targeting churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka

Choudary is considered one of the UK’s most notorious hate preachers. 

The father of five spent three years of a five-and-a-half year sentence in prison after he was detained in 2016 under terror laws for his encouragement to Muslims to join Isis.

The Choudary-led extremist group al-Muhajiroun was outlawed by the Government following the 2005 7/7 attacks on London but it has continued to operate under a number of different images.

He helped radicalise some of Britain’s most notorious terrorists, including London Bridge terror attacker ringleader Khuram Butt, and Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, who murdered Fusilier Lee Rigby in Woolwich, south-east London.

Mohamed tried to blow up the luxury Taj Samudra hotel in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo on Easter Sunday.

But he is believed to have botched his attempt to detonate his bomb at the five-star hotel and is thought to have blown himself up at a much smaller guest house.

UK counter-terrorism investigators believe he attended Kingston University in south-west London from 2006-07, before then studying for a postgraduate degree in Melbourne, Australia. 

In a previous interview with MailOnline his sister Samsul Hidaya said Abdul Lathief Jameel Mohamed had been educated to the highest level but became increasingly withdrawn and intense as he descended into extremism.

‘My brother became deeply, deeply religious while he was in Australia,’ she said. ‘He was normal when he went to study in Britain, and normal when he came back.

‘But after he did his postgraduate in Australia, he came back to Sri Lanka a different man.

‘He had a long beard and had lost his sense of humour. He became serious and withdrawn and would not even smile at anyone he didn’t know, let alone laugh.’

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk