LONDON (AP) — Two Muslim hardliners say the man seen wielding a bloody butcher’s knife after the killing of a British soldier is a Muslim convert who took part in demonstrations with the banned radical group al-Muhajiroun.
Meanwhile, British police this evening announced the arrests of two more suspects in the case. Police said a man and a woman, both aged 29, were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to murder.
Former al-Muhajiroun head Anjem Choudary told The Associated Press that the man in startling video footage that emerged after the killing as Michael Adebolajo, a Christian who converted to Islam around 2003 and took part in several of the group’s demonstrations in London.
The BBC broadcast footage from 2007 showing Adebolajo standing near Choudary at a rally.
Omar Bakri Muhammad — who now lives in Lebanon but had been a radical Muslim preacher in London — also said he recognized the man seen on television as Adebolajo and said he attended his London lectures in the early 2000s. Police have not named Adebolajo.
Bakri said he remembers Adebolajo as a “shy person” who was keen to learn about Islam and asked interesting questions.
“He used to listen more than he spoke,” Bakri said. “I was very surprised to learn that he is the suspect in the attack.”
A second person hospitalized following the attack has not yet been identified.
The two men suspected of butchering the British soldier had been part of previous investigations by security services, a British official said Thursday, as investigators searched several locations and tried to determine whether the men were part of a wider plot to instill terror on the streets of London.
The men, suspected of hacking the off-duty soldier while horrified bystanders watched, boasted of their exploits and warned of more violence in images recorded on witnesses’ mobile phones. Holding bloody knives and a meat cleaver, they waited for the arrival of police, who shot them in the legs, according to a passerby who tried to save the dying soldier.
