Colombo — One of the Srilankan suicide bombers of the Easter attacks, was radicalized by London-based terror-monger Anjem Choudhary, while he was studying at a university in London.
The 37-year-old Abdul Latheef Mohamed Jameel, who belongs to a wealthy and oppolent Srilankan family, reportedly met the hate-preacher while studying at Kingston University in London, as reported by BBC.
The 52-year-old Choudhary mentor of Al-Muhajiroun network was convicted and jailed in 2016 for inviting alliance for ISIS, but he was released by British intelligence in 2018.
Jameel, a father of four children, was the link between local radicals and IS or other Islamist groups based abroad, Sri Lankan security officers told the BBC. Jameel studied in the UK and Australia before he tried to go to Syria.
Jameel was one of the nine bombers who carried out a series of blasts targeting three churches and three hotels in Colombo in which which nearly 360 people were killed.
Jameel’s primary target on April 21 Easter bombings was the Taj Samudra hotel of Tata Group’s hospitality arm, Indian Hotels Company Ltd (IHCL), but he missed the target since his bomb probably failed and he was seen escaping the premises. But he later blew himself up at a motel in the suburb of Dehiwala, killing two guests.
“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,” a security official told BBC.
