KILLERS KNOWN TO MI5

ABOVE: Michael Adebolajo rants at the camera after the attack in Woolwich

When he went to college he got in with a different crowd and that’s when I think he was radicalised.

A former classmate

24th May 2013

By Richard Spillet

The two men arrested over the Woolwich murder were known to MI5, it was claimed yesterday.

Michael Adebolajo and his unnamed alleged accomplice, 22, were checked out by spymasters.

But they decided the pair were not a major threat to national security.

Adebolajo was yesterday revealed to be a former drug-smoking Essex Boy who converted to radical Islam in his teens.

The 28-year-old, seen ranting in a video after soldier Lee Rigby, 25, was hacked to death in the London district yesterday, had changed his name to Mujahid, meaning “one who fights Jihad”.

But the pair did not appear to be connected to al-Qaida or any other terror groups. Intelligence experts said they may have eventually acted as “lone wolves”.

Last night they were under armed guard in separate London hospitals. Neither has life-threatening injuries.

Six addresses were being searched yesterday as part of the investigation – three in south London, one in east London, one in north London and one in Lincolnshire.

Members of Adebolajo’s family live in Lincolnshire and Romford, Essex, and police are now quizzing relatives.

A raid was also carried out on the Greenwich flat linked to the second attacker, with four people taken away.

Adebolajo, who came from a Nigerian Christian background, was born in Lambeth, south London, and went to school in Romford, Essex, before studying at Greenwich University.

A former classmate, who asked not to be named, said: “When he went to college he got in with a different crowd and that’s when I think he was radicalised. I couldn’t believe it when I picked up a paper and saw his face on it. I felt sick.”

Adebolajo’s dad, Anthony, is thought to have moved the family away from London over fears his son had fallen in with the wrong crowd.

Ben Grundy, 25, who knew Adebolajo in Lincolnshire, said: “When he got here his whole life was about cannabis.

He said it expanded his mind. He quit drugs when he got into Islam.”

When Adebolajo returned to London, he is thought to have attended meetings of the now banned Islamist group, Al-Muhajiroun.

Controversial radical preacher Anjem Choudary, who was part of Al-Muhajiroun, confirmed Adebolajo attended his meetings.

“I last saw him in 2011,” he said. “He was a very nice man with impeccable character and nothing unusual about him.”

The suspects allegedly plotted the Woolwich attack after reading “DIY terror” mag Inspire, it was claimed last night.

Produced by al-Qaida, it is seen as a training manual and urges extremists to carry out “lone wolf” attacks.

Last night police arrested a man and a woman, both aged 29, on suspicion of conspiracy to murder.