Woolwich Murderers Went to Greenwich U

[Albert Hidel]

Note the reference is to the UK recognised University of Greenwich, not notorious John Bear's unaccredited Greenwich University, which some describe as a diploma mill.

Woolwich murder: suspects went to Greenwich university and 'plotted attack in Michael Adebowale’s flat'


24 May 2013

The second suspect in the killing of drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich was today identified as a former London schoolboy who attended the same university as his accomplice.

Michael Adebowale, 22, was shot by police along with his accomplice Michael Adebolajo, 28, during the attack outside the Army barracks on Wednesday.

The pair are throught to have plotted the attack in Adebowale’s flat in Greenwich which was raided by up to 20 heavily armed police yesterday.

Neighbours said both men were regularly seen at the address where Adebowale was living with his mother Juliet.

He and Adebolajo - said to have also been a drug dealer and robber - both attended Greenwich University, though it is not known how they met.

Both the suspects, who have been arrested for murder, remain under armed guard at separate London hospitals today.

Details of their backgrounds emerged as tributes continued to flood in for the soldier who was hacked down in the street just 200 yards from Woolwich Barracks.

Drummer Lee Rigby, 25, a married father with a two-year-old son, from Manchester, was from 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, and was attached to the Regimental Recruiting Team in London.

Dramatic new footage also emerged of the moment the two men were shot by firearms officers as they arrived at the scene.

The 10 second film shows Adebolajo sprinting at officers head on with a knife as his accomplice walks forward and aims a gun at them.

Terrifingly, Adebolajo gets within two feet of the woman police constable who is driving the armed response BMW X5 before he is shot and sent sprawling to the ground.

The officers have just a split second to take the decision to open fire through windows or a half opened door of the police car.

As Adebowale aims his handgun at the officers he, too, is shot by marksmen.

A man and a woman, both 29, were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to murder during a series of raids on six addresses in London, Essex and Lincolnshire yesterday.

It came as MI5 also faced continued questions over whether they had let the two men slip through the net.

Adebolajo was once intercepted by police as he tried to travel to Somalia to fight alongside Al-Shabaab and is also said to have served a jail sentence for violence.

Both men were said to be known to the security services but were not classified as an active threat.

One report suggested Adebolajo had complained about being harassed by officials from MI5.

Cabinet minister Eric Pickles said the police and the intelligence services would be “thoroughly investigated” for their actions.

Keith Vaz, the chairman of the powerful Home Affairs Committee, said the first priority was to investigate “how and why” the terrorists carried out the atrocity.

But he said MPs on his committee will want to examine the Woolwich case as part of their next inquiry, which will be on international terrorism.

Today neighbours at Adebowale’s fourth floor flat in Greenwich described him as “always courteous” and “a nice normal guy” who loved football and was a passionate Manchester United fan.

He is understood to have attended Kidbrooke School in Greenwich, while Adebolajo was a former pupil at Marshalls Park school in Romford.

Neighbours told how the pair would often be seen at Adebowale’s flat, where forensic teams were today carrying out a painstaking search for clues.

John Ackworth, 42, said: “Michael (Adebowale) seemed a lovely guy, I am in total shock. I used to see him in the lift and we would joke about football I support Charlton and he would make fun of me. He was a Manchester United fan.

“He was always very polite and we chatted just a few days ago. He was always wearing a blue cap and apart from that jeans and normal clothes.

“The other guy was often around here too. He was very quiet and when I said hello hardly acknowledged me. I saw him around here a lot - I wouldn’t be surprised if he was staying here.

“All us neighbours are very shocked. His mother is a lovely woman and we feel so sorry for her.”

A close family friend, who lives in the same block told the Standard: "Michael was a close friend of my daughter and a lovely boy. He loves his music and was into music production. He was studying music he told me.

"We are devastated by this it is so close to home, they are good friends. He lived with his mother and his sister moved out some time ago. The last time, I saw Michael he seemed upbeat and excited about his course. His mother is such a hard worker this is terrible."

Another resident at the block said: “I know the family. I think Michael is a student at Greenwich University. “

His mother is said to have worked as a probation officer and there were reports that Adebowale had been in “serious gangland trouble” and had to leave the area for a time.

When he returned after several months he appears to have converted to Islam and was dressed in a white robe and wearing a skull cap.

Adebolajo’s devoutly Christian family moved to Lincolnshire because they feared he might become radicalised after becoming interested in Islam aged 16.

He is understood to have started at Greenwich University in September 2003 after leaving Havering Sixth Form College.

The university refused to comment on reports.

Hundreds of floral tributes were left at the scene where Drummer Rigby was killed this morning.

The family of Drummer Rigby, who had a two-year-old son Jack, issued a statement paying tribute to him yesterday saying: “Lee was lovely. He would do anything for anybody, he always looked after his sisters and always protected them. He took a 'big brother' role with everyone.

"All he wanted to do from when he was a little boy, was be in the Army.”

Police watchdog the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said it was not pursuing any criminal or misconduct offences in relation to the officers who used their weapons.

Anjem Choudary, the former leader of banned radical group al-Muhajiroun, said Adebolajo regularly attended meetings and demonstrations held by his group and successor organisations.

Omar Bakri Mohammed, a hate preacher banned from Britain, claimed he had converted Adebolajo himself.

Woolwich attack suspects' former university played host to extremists
The Islamic Society at Greenwich University, where both the Woolwich suspects are thought to have studied, has hosted a series of radical Muslim speakers and distributed extremist literature, The Telegraph can disclose.


Michael Adebolajo protesting in 2007 outside Paddington Green Police Station Photo: NNP

By David Barrett, Home Affairs Correspondent
9:47PM BST 24 May 2013

The group’s possible role in radicalising Michael Adebolajo, 28, and Michael Adebowale, 22, is coming under close scrutiny after it emerged that the society had promoted extremist views for years.

Efforts to put a stop to campus extremism, led by the Government and the umbrella group Universities UK, appear to have had little effect on activities at the south-east London former polytechnic.

Adebolajo is believed to have studied at Greenwich from September 2003 after completing A-levels at Havering Sixth Form College.

Adebowale is thought to have studied business and may have completed a specialist course unit in “organisational behaviour and human resources management”.

The Telegraph has learnt that a pamphlet written by a preacher who was banned from entering Britain by the Home Secretary in 2010 was distributed during a freshers’ fair at Greenwich University in 2011. Dr Zakir Naik, the author, said in the booklet: “Every Muslim should be a terrorist.”

Other figures known for their extreme views have appeared in person at the university, including Dr Khalid Fikry, who has supported convicted terrorists.


Dr Khalid Fikri gave a speech at the Old Royal Naval College at the event advertised, inset (Alamy)

Dr Fikry appeared at an event organised by Greenwich University Islamic Society in February, at the institution’s baroque King William Court, part of the Old Royal Naval College designed by Sir Christopher Wren. The event was entitled “The Eternal Tie: Marriage in Islam” and his speech posted on YouTube.

Dr Fikry’s views previously came under scrutiny when he gave a speech outside Belmarsh high security prison in south-east London last August, in which he praised Omar Abdel-Rahman, who is known as the “Blind Sheik”.

Abdel-Rahman was investigated by the FBI for his role in plotting the first World Trade Centre bombing in 1993. He has also been accused of being the leader of Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, which killed 58 foreign tourists, including six Britons, and four Egyptians in the 1997 Luxor massacre.

He was convicted of seditious conspiracy in 1996 and is serving a life sentence in Butner Federal Medical Centre, North Carolina.

In the speech at Belmarsh, Dr Fikry accused the Americans of organising a “conspiracy” against Abdel-Rahman.

He also criticised Britain’s imprisonment of the Muslim extremists Abu Hamza and Abu Qatada. “This treatment is not for human beings,” said Dr Fikry.

The Greenwich University Islamic Society distributed literature by Dr Naik at its fresher’s fair in 2011.

Dr Naik had been banned from entering Britain the previous year by Theresa May after she ruled that his presence was “not conducive to the public good”.

He had been due to give a series of lectures at arenas in Wembley and Sheffield. Mrs May said she was excluding him because his “numerous comments” were evidence of “unacceptable behaviour”.

The decision, later upheld by the High Court, was based on a sermon that the Mumbai-based preacher posted on the internet in 2006 which said: “Beware of Muslims saying Osama bin Laden is right or wrong. I reject them … we don’t know. But if you ask my view, if given the truth, if he is fighting the enemies of Islam, I am for him.”

Another speaker who was advertised as appearing at a 2011 event organised by the university’s Islamic society was Zahir Mahmoud, who has been accused of glorifying Hamas as freedom fighters.

The society has also promoted videos by another radical preacher, Abu Usamah, on its Facebook page.

Abu Usamah, a Birmingham based imam, featured on the Channel 4 Dispatches programme Undercover Mosque in which he expressed support for Osama bin Laden and said homosexuals were “perverted, filthy dogs who should be murdered”.

He has been banned from several academic institutions for his extreme views. A spokesman for Student Rights, an organisation which investigates extremism on university campuses, said: “Whilst it is still too early to link the Woolwich attackers’ radicalisation to their time spent in higher education, the University of Greenwich has seen a number of speakers over the years whose views would certainly raise concerns.

“These include those who have described Hamas as freedom fighters, defended individuals convicted of serious offences, and incited sectarian hatred.

“Allowing such speakers unchallenged platforms runs the risk of creating an environment in which these views are given religious legitimacy, and in which political extremism can thrive.

“When combined with the risk posed by online material and the rhetoric of radical ideologues, such an environment can be part of a potent combination that can lead young people towards violence.”

The spokesman added: “At least one of the two men who carried out Wednesday’s terrible crime appears to be the latest in a line of individuals who have attended British universities before carrying out violent acts, and should it prove that his time a university was pivotal to his radicalisation, it will be time for an open and frank discussion about the role that our campuses play in helping to create terrorists.”

Earlier this week Universities UK announced the launch of a website, Safer Campus Communities, which aims to help institutions tackle extremism.

A spokesman for Greenwich University declined to comment on the society’s activities, or to confirm the Woolwich suspects had been students there.

No one from the Islamic Society was available for comment.

Until 1992 Greenwich University was known as Thames Polytechnic.

[Herbert Spencer]

If Obama had a son...

[WilliamW]

[jamesc1]

The United States should immediately STOP accepting any new residence seekers when they come from countries that are not operating in this century. By this I mean countries that refuse to allow different religions, different political parties, and really, any type of differences that apparently disagree in any way with the dark ages. These come here poor, uneducated/as we understand education, ignorant, without hope, and MAD. If they don't have immediate success they will blame America. They don't seem to get the fact that in our system people get the chance to succeed or fail in HUGE ways.

If you have a religion that believes that all other religions are wrong and that makes these people free game to shoot or stab, well, stay where you are. We have enough native born nuts, we don't need to import more.

The idea that the whole world has the right to move to an already overcrowded and stagnant country is absurd. We certaunly don't need more people who hate and think women have to be clothed from head to toe in a blanket, and if they refuse, you get to kill them. People come here from countries saying they want freedom, bull. They come here to take it, not to give it. If you wish your own freedom you must be willing to allow others to have theirs. My rights end where yours begin. If people can't live with this simple idea they should just stay where they originate, the 15th century.