Terrorist landed ‘customer safety’ job on the Tube
a facilitating hub in Hungary to safe houses in Belgium and on to the attack grounds in France.
“The security services are now being criticised but it’s really a political problem.” Mr Orton said of Zaghba: “If he was on a watch list after being arrested by the Italian authorities he shouldn’t have been allowed to come into the country.”
Zaghba was stopped at Marconi airport in Bologna on March 15 last year after he became agitated as he approached the check-in desk. He was travelling with a backpack, his mobile phone and no money. Other videos found on his phone included TERROR ringleader Khuram Butt boasted how he had been put in charge of the safety of passengers after landing a job on the London Underground.
The maniac was based at Westminster Tube station, with access to tunnels under the Houses of Parliament, despite having appeared in a documentary about British jihadis.
Butt, 27, was shown unfurling the black flag of Islamic State on the show called The Jihadis Next Door, screened four months before he got the customer services job at Transport for London in May 2016.
Pakistan-born Butt, who came to Britain as an asylum seeker, claimed on his CV that he carried out a range of duties including “incidents and emergencies, assisting to ensure the safety of customers and staff”.
He described himself as a “trusted individual with the drive to make a difference”.
In the document, obtained exclusively by the Daily Express, Butt also describes himself as having the “ability to work under intense pressure while
eXClUSiVe
managing multiple tasks” and being “a strong team player” who is “relaxed in tentative situations”.
He lasted five months in the job after reportedly being sacked for poor attendance. But within three weeks he was working as a security guard in London.
His longest period of employment – three and a half years – was at a KFC franchise in East Ham.
However, Butt became known to MI5 in 2015 and an investigation was opened after concerns reached counter-terrorism officers.
His terror links raise more questions of how he slipped under the authorities’ radar.
The father of two from Barking, east London, was an associate of jailed hate preacher Anjem Choudary and a follower of his banned group al-Muhajiroun, which has been linked to a quarter of Britain’s terror offences between 1998 and 2015.
Butt was even seen with Choudary at a rally the day after Drummer Lee Rigby was murdered by fanatics. propaganda material and religious sermons that confirmed his wish to join Islamic State.
His mother, a Muslim convert who lives in Castello di Serravalle near Bologna, thought he was heading to Rome. She told investigators: “I don’t know him any more. He scares me. All he does is surf the web. He spends all day in front of the computer watching incredibly strange things.”
She said her son had been brainwashed in London, adding: “Before he knew these people he never behaved like this.” Police searched the home and took away Zaghba’s computer. He was released when a review court decided there was insufficient evidence of terrorism to charge him. The Italian security services say they sent an alert to London with the information gathered from the phone and from checks carried out in Bologna.
Sources claimed a complete dossier on Zaghba would have been forwarded to MI5 in April 2016 when he moved to London.
The sources added that because he had Italian citizenship he could not be deported.
Last night Scotland Yard said Zaghba was not on the radar of counter-terrorism investigators and therefore not “a subject of interest”.