When his old school friends saw him on the television drenched in blood, waving a cleaver and declaring jihad, they nearly fell off their chairs. There was no mistaking Michael Adebolajo, their 'bright and witty' classmate from a devoutly Christian family. They remembered his smile, him studying hard, taking the bus to school and playing football with his mates. But, his athletic frame aside, he bore no resemblance to the ghastly figure now haunting the nation's television screens.

For despite spouting rhetoric about supposed British crimes in 'our lands', Adebolajo is a British citizen born in London. His mother and father are hard-working Nigerian immigrants from an academic family in West Africa who settled in London in the early 1980s. A Christian couple, they believed in assimilating into British life, and Michael seems to have forged easy friendships with schoolmates of all colours and creeds. Virtually all the friends on his Facebook page have traditional British names such as Louise, Kelly, Robert, Craig, Gemma, Lauren and Paul, to name a few. Among them is Matthew Selt, now a professional snooker player. He was 'just a lovely, lovely guy', in the words of former classmate Stephen Cavalier – who, as a serving PC in the Metropolitan Police – could scarcely have followed a different path.

Speaking at his home in Essex yesterday, Mr Cavalier said: 'It seems odd to say it now, after the events of yesterday, but I remember him as just a lovely, lovely guy. 'I knew Michael at Marshalls Park School in Romford when we were teenagers. He was a good sportsman and just an all-round nice guy.' He said he was no longer close to Adebolajo, who had requested they become 'Facebook friends' a few years ago. 'As soon as I saw the news last night I immediately recognised it was Michael. I was in shock really when I saw him.' Adebolajo's dark side seems to have been awakened in his mid-teens, around the time Tony Blair was sending British troops into Afghanistan and Iraq.

He descended into a world where he was consumed with jihadism and later joined several Islamist groups banned in Britain because they are considered so extreme. Radicalised by the likes of hate preacher Anjem Choudary, he fell into petty crime. Alarmed by the changes they saw in their son, his parents moved the family to Lincolnshire to make a fresh start.
But it was too little, too late, to save their first-born from an ugly descent. By 2003, he began calling himself Mujaahid – meaning 'one who engages in jihad'. By 2006, he was allegedly marching with Islamic fanatics bearing placards exhorting: 'Behead those who insult Islam'. Last year, it is believed, police stopped him travelling to Somalia to fight alongside Al-Shabbab fanatics – the group behind the 2011 kidnapping of Judith Tebbutt and murder of her husband David.
Michael Olumide Akinbiyi Adebolajo was born on December 10, 1984, at Kings College Hospital in Lambeth, South London.
His Nigerian-born father, Anthony, was a student at the time, and went on to become an NHS nurse. His mother, Tina, the niece of a university law professor in Benin, West Africa, was a housewife but she too dedicated herself to public duty by becoming a social worker.

Neighbours of the family remembered them as friendly and welcoming churchgoers. But Graham Silverton, 63, who has lived in the street for 25 years, said neighbours had a particularly bad experience with Adebolajo when he was a teenager.
He said one of the neighbours' children, a teenage girl, had gone to the Adebolajos door to retrieve a ball kicked into their garden and was insulted and punched by Adebolajo. Another said the teenager was inviting groups of friends to sit in the garage and listen to loud music with 'lots of beer'. According to Choudary, Adebolajo embraced Islam around the age of 15 or 16. 'I knew him as Mujaahid. He attended our meetings and my lectures,' the preacher boasted. After A levels, Adebolajo attended the University in Greenwich, South-East London, and lived in student accommodation in the borough which has a large Muslim population.

He is believed to have attended the nearby Lewisham Islamic Centre mosque, which police visited yesterday. In 2006, the mosque's cleric Shakeel Begg was recorded urging students to wage jihad against Israelis in Palestine. Despite his Muslim beliefs, Adebolajo fell into petty crime including stealing mobile phones, and is understood to have spent a short spell behind bars for violent behaviour. On his Facebook page, he wrote recently: 'Mostly HMP [prison]. I have been a naughty boy but don't tell anybody. Nowadays I'm a personal trainer.' A friend said: 'Michael used to preach a lot about Islam. He told me he converted in jail.' Adebolajo's family lived in Romford until around 2004, when they moved to Lincolnshire. It is unclear if his parents are still a couple, or if they divorced around this time. There was no answer at the five-bedroom detached village home in Saxilby, near Lincoln, where Adebolajo's father, Anthony, is believed to live. Last week, Adebolajo was spotted with his alleged accomplice preaching on the street outside Poundland in Woolwich town centre. For whatever reason, he decided words were not enough.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2329958/Woolwich-attack-Descent-evil-teenager-Michael-Adebolajo-devout-Christian-family.html#ixzz2UAwOkPbM
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Second suspect:

Another address in Greenwich – thought to be that of the second suspect – was also sealed off and searched early on Thursday. The small flat is on the fourth floor of a block, Macey House, about four miles from the site of Wednesday's attack . It is registered as the home of a 22-year-old British man, also of Nigerian descent, who lived in the property with his mother.

Neighbours at the scene said he lived there with his mother and went to a local college – although this has not been confirmed by police. One neighbour, Madeleine Edwards, said the man at the flat had been involved in gangs when he was younger.

She said he had left the property for about a year after giving evidence in a murder trial. "His mother said he had to disappear," said Edwards. When he came back Edwards had converted to Islam, she said, and had become "distant".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/may/23/suspect-michael-adebolajo-woolwich-jihad

Suspect 1:

'Mostly HMP [prison]. I have been a naughty boy but don't tell anybody. Nowadays I'm a personal trainer.' A friend said: 'Michael used to preach a lot about Islam. He told me he converted in jail.'

Suspect 2:

She said he had left the property for about a year after giving evidence in a murder trial. "His mother said he had to disappear," said Edwards. When he came back Edwards had converted to Islam, she said, and had become "distant".

^^^^I knew they both converted to radical Islam in prison.

Perhaps, the government needs to do something about the Islamist ridden prisons. The prison system was created to rejuvenate criminals not turn them to extremists. Tired of seeing black youths coming out of the prison system with that "Akhi" and "Mashallah" talks.

Have you read The Islamist by Ed Husein? It kinda gives you an insight on Islamism, recruitment/indoctrination etc and also the leniency on the part of the UK govt in terms of religion.

Egba girl: Have you read The Islamist by Ed Husein? It kinda gives you an insight on Islamism, recruitment/indoctrination etc and also the leniency on the part of the UK govt in terms of religion.

No, hun... I don't have anything against Muslims and I'll support them when they're in the right; but I don't like reading anything about Islam. Personally, I think the government has intentionally turned a blind eye on the spread of radical Islam in the UK because the financial backers(Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar) of these extreme ideology are their allies. Those countries have huge investments in the UK and I'm sure the UK's also trying to protect its business interests as well.

It's not only the UK, America and most western countries are also culpable as well. They are all after the oil money and the goodies that come with the Gulf region. I still don't know why Saudi Arabia and its wahabism/salafism hasn't been bombed back to the stone age. That's one country I could care less about.

What's also problematic about this evil trend is that; it seems they're only after black youths. Most of the converts in the UK are blacks and I doubt there's any black guy from the UK that hasn't been approached by these medieval savages and their psychotic ideology.

shymexx:

No, hun... I don't have anything against Muslims and I'll support them when they're in the right; but I don't like reading anything about Islam. Personally, I think the government has intentionally turned a blind eye on the spread of radical Islam in the UK because the financial backers(Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar) of these extreme ideology are their allies. Those countries have huge investments in the UK and I'm sure the UK's also trying to protect its business interests as well.

It's not only the UK, America and most western countries are also culpable as well. They are all after the oil money and the goodies that come with the Gulf region. I still don't know why Saudi Arabia and its wahabism/salafism hasn't been bombed back to the stone age. That's one country I could care less about.

What's also problematic about this evil trend is that; it seems they're only after black youths. Most of the converts in the UK are blacks and I doubt there's any black guy from the UK that hasn't been approached by these medieval savages and their psychotic ideology.

I'm not sure why the govt is slack on the spread of radical Islam but in his book, Ed def agrees that they had too much leeway while he was still part of his group. I think you should read this book though. It's an easy read plus its a personal story of how he became a radical and why he left. Try reading it. Would have personal nailed you a copy to force you to read it but i sold mine last week

Are most of the recruitments really black though? Hmmm that's interesting

Egba girl:
I'm not sure why the govt is slack on the spread of radical Islam but in his book, Ed def agrees that they had too much leeway while he was still part of his group. I think you should read this book though. It's an easy read plus its a personal story of how he became a radical and why he left. Try reading it. Would have personal nailed you a copy to force you to read it but i sold mine last week

Are most of the recruitments really black though? Hmmm that's interesting

Most of the new converts and foot-soldiers in the UK are blacks. You need to be out here to see how everyone's turning Muslim. Africans and Caribbeans. Even if they prefer Islam - there's Nation of Islam out here with a different doctrine that's completely different from the Arab one. I don't want know why they don't want to join that one.

Anyway, you can always get me another copy lol. Scratch my back and I'll reciprocate in triple folds lol.

Seems like pple are now joining certain religious groups just to justify their delinquent behaviour

mondi_cheeks: Seems like pple are now joining certain religious groups just to justify their delinquent behaviour

Or is it the other way round?

shymexx:

No, hun... I don't have anything against Muslims and I'll support them when they're in the right; but I don't like reading anything about Islam. Personally, I think the government has intentionally turned a blind eye on the spread of radical Islam in the UK because the financial backers(Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar) of these extreme ideology are their allies. Those countries have huge investments in the UK and I'm sure the UK's also trying to protect its business interests as well.

It's not only the UK, America and most western countries are also culpable as well. They are all after the oil money and the goodies that come with the Gulf region. I still don't know why Saudi Arabia and its wahabism/salafism hasn't been bombed back to the stone age. That's one country I could care less about.

What's also problematic about this evil trend is that; it seems they're only after black youths. Most of the converts in the UK are blacks and I doubt there's any black guy from the UK that hasn't been approached by these medieval savages and their psychotic ideology.

Hmm...interesting take. I would blame a lot of it on the cancer of "political correctness" that is currently ravaging many Western nations. We see it over and over...rather than tackle obvious red flags, they are waved aside in the name of "not offending" anyone or some imaginary goal of 'inclusiveness'.

As for the target being black youths...what better target? Many black youths are told from infancy that society has "done them wrong" and is prejudiced towards them, will try to hold them down etc etc (and while there is certainly truth to this, it is not by any means the entire story)...the soil is already fertile for planting & growing further seeds of hate. The idle mind is the devil's workshop abi? the thing is just sad.

How I wish this guy never joined ROP

Also, I dont blame the British for calling him a Nigerian, lets us also look inward at ourselves even at the family setting,a child that does well in the family belongs to the father but if the child is a miscreant,the father immediately disowns the child and says it is the mothers character the child possess.Shm on those accusing the British most especially all men

/
All these abo.ki and Ngba.ti mujahideens originating from Nigeria should be of great concern
to all peaceful people of the world.
/

Hmmmmmmm

Both individuals still have brought shame to Nigerians everywhere.

SMH ...

They did it for the lulz

r we sayin islam is synonymous wit psychopathism.gosh!som1 pls tellme diz headlines r products of my dream!:-(

I hope Ghanaians in Britain are not brainwashed as this murder was.

No smoke without Fire, no terrorism without Islam

Religion can't be isolated from he's heinous atrocity

Government should stop making politically correct statements. Action should be taken to curb rise of virulent Islamism before it consumes us all. Use good Muslims to discredit bad Muslims, simple as abc.

Prof Corruption: Government should stop making politically correct statements. Action should be taken to curb rise of virulent Islamism before it consumes us all. Use good Muslims to discredit bad Muslims, simple as abc.

Muslims must first admit that there are bad muslims, instead of portraying terrorists among them as non muslims.

@Post

I am pleased that the British media is making an attempt to clarify this guy's background by making it clear that he was not only born but also raised in England. Now where are those Nigerians trying to claim that Michael Adebolajo is Nigerian when the man has most likely never stepped foot on Nigerian soil? Abeg Britain, Michael is yours. He is a product of your society. Leave Nigeria and her citizens out of it.

I think the UK has been far too tolerant of these people.

They need to lock up all these radical Imams and religious fanatics who preach hate and should deport any person who does not support secularism.

I don't just know the kind of lies somebody will tell somebody that will make somebody to shred/hack somebody to pieces!

shymexx:

Most of the new converts and foot-soldiers in the UK are blacks. You need to be out here to see how everyone's turning Muslim. Africans and Caribbeans. Even if they prefer Islam - there's Nation of Islam out here with a different doctrine that's completely different from the Arab one. I don't want know why they don't want to join that one.

Anyway, you can always get me another copy lol. Scratch my back and I'll reciprocate in triple folds lol.

Bro, I think the Western nations have tinkered so much with the Islamic world and allowed them so many compromises. The results are the new breed terrorism on their soil, now spiraling out of control. Something tells me the unusual economic predicaments of young blacks in the UK might be responsible for their massive conversions to Islam. I may be wrong though...

The guy should get a death sentence. Has the death sentence been abolished in the UK ?

shymexx: Suspect 1:
Suspect 2:

^^^^I knew they both converted to radical Islam in prison.

Perhaps, the government needs to do something about the Islamist ridden prisons. The prison system was created to rejuvenate criminals not turn them to extremists. Tired of seeing black youths coming out of the prison system with that "Akhi" and "Mashallah" talks.

old news - it's so easy to tell he got converted in HMP..... young boys are easy-pickings for those dangerous islamic bigots.

what can the government do? they pamper them! hijab has been banned in france but cameron and his bulldogs are too spineless to do the same in britain.

Uyi Iredia: The guy should get a death sentence. Has the death sentence been abolished in the UK ?

no capital punishment in the UK, he would get a life sentence in the cosiest jail in britain - single cell, rugged, coloured TV, cable satellite, 3 square meals, etc.

TheBookWorm: I think the UK has been far too tolerant of these people.

They need to lock up all these radical Imams and religious fanatics who preach hate and should deport any person who does not support secularism.

I share your sentiments, but you must realise that preaching hate is within their fundamental rights.

TheBookWorm: What about the second suspect?

Isn't he of Nigerian descent as well?

do you know how to read?

ghananotnaija: I hope Ghanaians in Britain are not brainwashed as this murder was.

Most black neighbourhoods in London have large number of young Africans resident there. It is not unlikely that Ghanaians have been radicalised too.

Mintayo: I don't just know the kind of lies somebody will tell somebody that will make somebody to shred/hack somebody to pieces!

its not too difficult to win a convert, all you need is audience. This security agencies should be concerned about this

Mintayo: I don't just know the kind of lies somebody will tell somebody that will make somebody to shred/hack somebody to pieces!

i taya for somebody o