{"id":478214,"date":"2025-10-06T13:51:26","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T13:51:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/478214\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T13:51:26","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T13:51:26","slug":"neighbours-of-manchester-synagogue-attacker-say-they-reported-concerns-to-police-manchester","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/478214\/","title":{"rendered":"Neighbours of Manchester synagogue attacker say they reported concerns to police | Manchester"},"content":{"rendered":"

Neighbours of the Manchester<\/a> synagogue attacker reported concerns to police about him and a family member being \u201cradicalised\u201d and attempting to \u201cpreach\u201d the Qur\u2019an to local children, the Guardian has been told.<\/p>\n

Police have said Jihad al-Shamie, 35, did not appear to be known to counter-terrorism officials before he attacked a Heaton Park synagogue leading to the deaths of two worshippers on Yom Kippur.<\/p>\n

However, people who knew the family said on Monday they had concerns about the apparently fanatical interest in Islam shown by the killer and another family member in recent years.<\/p>\n

One neighbour said \u201ceverything changed\u201d during the Covid pandemic when Shamie and the other relative started wearing traditional Islamic dress, holding \u201cprivate\u201d gatherings in the garden and attempting to \u201cpreach the Qur\u2019an\u201d on their quiet suburban street.<\/p>\n

A neighbour told the Guardian: \u201cThey just started wearing all the robes and everything. I thought [one relative] was being radicalised because he wouldn\u2019t speak to us for a bit.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was coming up the road preaching to kids about the Qur\u2019an. It was quite intimidating. It was intrusive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The neighbour, who did not want to be named, said she was \u201creally concerned\u201d and reported it to Greater Manchester<\/a> police in the summer of 2020 or 2021. \u201cI would never do that if I weren\u2019t [concerned],\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The disclosure is likely to raise questions about whether Shamie should have been on the radar of counter-terrorism police before his attack on the synagogue last Thursday. One witness reported hearing him shout: \u201cThis is what you\u2019re going to get for killing our children,\u201d as he attempted to break into the building armed with a knife. Shamie was shot dead by police after the attack.<\/p>\n

Greater Manchester police have been contacted for comment. The force said on Friday they believed he \u201cmay have been influenced by extreme Islamist ideology\u201d.<\/p>\n

The neighbour said she had been invited for meals at their home when they first moved in around 15 years ago \u2013 but that stopped when the father, Faraj, moved out a short time later. Their mother, Formoz, was \u201creally nice\u201d and chatty and a \u201cstrong woman\u201d, who raised the three boys mostly by herself, she said.<\/p>\n

Neighbours said they noticed <\/strong>a change in some of the family during Covid. \u201cIt was the change because I would talk to them all the time and then [one of the family] just started rocking up in the robes. He went from not going down that path to going down that path,\u201d said one resident in Prestwich, north Manchester.<\/p>\n

They said the \u201cfollowers\u201d of Shamie and the family member would \u201ccongregate\u201d in the family\u2019s front garden: \u201cThey didn\u2019t have any white friends. I thought: what the heck is going on? It wasn\u2019t just praying in the garden \u2013 it was private and secret.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neighbours also claimed that police had visited Shamie\u2019s family home earlier this year, apparently because of safeguarding concerns.<\/p>\n

Shamie told one resident \u201ca few months ago\u201d that his partner had moved out. He apparently did not know where they were now living.<\/p>\n

The Guardian has also been told that Shamie \u201cbecame reclusive\u201d after suffering what they described as \u201cbrain damage\u201d when he fell off a cliff about 20 years ago, when he was a teenager.<\/p>\n

\u201cJihad had a bad accident,\u201d said one neighbour. \u201cHe fell off a cliff and got airlifted to London. He had massive head injuries, it was horrific. You didn\u2019t see much of him after that \u2013 he became very quiet and reclusive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Guardian revealed on Friday that Shamie was on police bail under investigation for an alleged rape when he attacked the synagogue, about two miles from the family home, last Thursday morning.<\/p>\n

On Friday Jihad\u2019s father, Faraj al-Shamie, condemned his son\u2019s \u201cheinous act\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He wrote: \u201cThe news from Manchester regarding the terrorist attack targeting a Jewish synagogue has been a profound shock to us.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe al-Shamie family in the UK and abroad strongly condemns this heinous act, which targeted peaceful, innocent civilians. We fully distance ourselves from this attack and express our deep shock and sorrow over what has happened. Our hearts and thoughts are with the victims and their families, and we pray for their strength and comfort.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Neighbours of the Manchester synagogue attacker reported concerns to police about him and a family member being \u201cradicalised\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8813],"tags":[748,393,4884,2465,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-478214","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manchester","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-manchester","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115327551931909062","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}