Identities of the two Woolwich killers Revealed

The identities of the two Woolwich killers has been revealed.

The suspects are Michael Adebolajo, 28, originally from Romford in Essex, and Michael Oluwatobi Adebowale, 22, of Greenwich in southeast London. They are both British citizen of Nigerian descent though not much is known about  Michael Oluwatobi Adebowale at the moment.

However, Michael 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.

 

His parents 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.

Adebolajo is also believed to have experimented with other drugs.

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'.

Blood-soaked Michael Adebolajo

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.

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. 

Anjem Choudary (right) claimed that this is him pictured with Michael Adebolajo, 28, (circled) at an Islamist demonstration in London in 2007

 

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.

Michael Adebolajo was once the best pal of a war hero Lance Corporal Kirk Redpath (who was killed by a roadside bomb in 2007 in Iraq) back in their school days.

School days Michael Adebolajo, circled right, in a class picture with Kirk Redpath, left

After school Michael moved to Lincolnshire while Kirk joined the Army, becoming a Lance Corporal in the 1st Battalion, The Irish Guards.
He was a drummer in the band — like Adebolajo’s tragic victim.