SMILING KILLER

Sri Lanka bombing – Brit-educated suicide bomber pictured as a happy boy as sister reveals he became ‘totally crazy’

Abdul Lathief Jameel Mohamed - who spent a year studying at London's Kingston University - was one of the attackers who killed 359 people

Corey Charlton

Published: 12:16, 25 Apr 2019
Updated: 14:47, 25 Apr 2019

A UK-educated suicide bomber in Sri Lanka became "really angry" and "crazy" during a rapid descent into extremism while studying abroad, his sister says.

Abdul Lathief Jameel Mohamed was yesterday identified as one of nine attackers who killed 359 people with suicide bombs across the country on Easter Sunday.

Abdul Lathief Jameel Mohamed pictured as a lad before his dark descent into extremismCredit: Doug Seeburg - The Sun

His sister said he was a fun-loving and happy person before becoming 'angry' and 'crazy' after his radicalisationCredit: Doug Seeburg - The Sun

Mohamed was also captured on CCTV entering the guesthouse where he later detonated his vestCredit: Doug Seeburg - The Sun

Mohamed smiles with a pal while holding a crocodileCredit: Doug Seeburg - The Sun

Authorities say Mohamed studied in the UK in the mid-2000s. It is not known which of the men pictured here is himCredit: AFP

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Sources said he had spent a year studying aerospace engineering at London's Kingston University in the mid-2000s before heading to Melbourne Australia, to complete his post-grad.

His sister Samsul Hidaya today told : "My brother became deeply, deeply religious while he was in Australia.

"He was normal when he went to study in Britain, and normal when he came back. But after he did his postgraduate in Australia, he came back to Sri Lanka a different man.

"He had a long beard and had lost his sense of humour. He became serious and withdrawn and would not even smile at anyone he didn't know, let alone laugh."

Last night police sources said Mohamed may have targeted the five-star Taj Hotel in Colombo but his backpack failed to explode.

WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR:

At least 359 people killed and 500 injured after nine suicide bombers attacked three churches, four hotels and a block of flats in Sri Lanka
Thirty-nine foreigners were killed including eight Brits, 'several' Americans, one Dutch, one Chinese, two Turkish, three Danes and one Portuguese national
40 suspects have been arrested
Authorities name local Islamic terror group National Thowheeth Jama'ath as being responsible for the attacks saying they were helped by 'international network' of jihadis
ISIS claims the suicide bombers were 'soldiers of the Islamic State'

Officers are looking into the theory that he returned to his room at the nearby Tropical Inn guesthouse and tried to fix it – but the explosive blew up killing him and two others.

There is also the possibility that the evil terrorist decided to detonate his bomb at the smaller venue, five hours after the initial blasts rocked the city, when he realised police were closing in on him.

CCTV footage obtained by today shows him dressed in white and wearing a backpack wandering into the building in Dehiwala.

His expertise in mechanical engineering suggests he could have been one of the masterminds who helped build the deadly suicide vests. Aussie PM Scott Morrison confirmed he had spent time in Melbourne on a student visa before departing in 2013.

According to , he arrived in Britain on January 1, 2006, and returned to Sri Lanka on 29 September 2007, while also making another visit to the UK in 2008.

Mrs Hidaya described how Mohamed went from a happy, fun-loving child into an angry, moody adult who would scold family members for trimming their beards.

She told the website: "He was a music lover and a funny boy. It makes me sad to think what happened to him. Before he died he would not let his children listen to music and he never said a friendly word to anyone.

"He told male relatives off for trimming their beards and became angry and totally crazy. So I just stopped speaking to him because it got to the point where it was getting out of hand."

Meanwhile, British intelligence services are now probing whether Mohamed could have been radicalised while attending Kingston – which was “named and shamed” by former UK Prime Minister Cameron in 2015.

The then-Tory leader listed the college among four UK universities which had invited the most radicals speakers to events following a study by the Government’s Extremism Analysis Unit.

At the time, Kingston strongly denied the claims made by Cameron calling it "highly unlikely" that students would be brainwashed while studying there.