Manchester synagogue terrorist made me watch ISIS videos and planned to join Islamist group, ex-partner claims

The Manchester synagogue attacker groomed a young woman and made her watch Isis terror videos, it was revealed last night.

The woman, who was reportedly in a relationship with Jihad Al-Shamie, said she was ‘groomed into a controlling relationship’ with him.

She left the country after the four-month on-off relationship ended but said he had pushed ‘extreme’ views and repeatedly attacked her after meeting her through the Muslim dating app called Muzmatch.

She recalled one occasion when Al-Shamie, 35, suggested he wanted to join the terror organisation Isis. She was horrified by his extremism but never believed he would act on his beliefs.

While pushing ‘extreme views’ on her, Al-Shamie would tell her to be ‘dedicated to the cause’.

She said: ‘He used to say, ‘I want you to be dedicated to the cause’, and he used to sit there and make me watch videos – like extreme videos – that I had no interest in. I am Muslim and of course I love to learn more. But this stuff was things that I have been raised to not agree with.

‘He used to always say I was taught the wrong way and I wasn’t taught right. He was basically just trying to groom me into what he thought,’ she told the Manchester Evening News.

Meanwhile, an NHS mental health carer is among those arrested by police over the attack that left two dead, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

The 46-year-old white British woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, is said by neighbours to be a recent convert to Islam. She was one of three men and three women arrested by counter-terrorism police after Al-Shamie launched a vehicle and knife attack outside the Heaton Park Synagogue on Thursday.

Her home in Bolton was raided on Friday night by dozens of armed officers and uniformed police, with neighbours in the peaceful street reportedly hearing ‘screams and shouts’.

The woman is a peer support worker for an NHS hospital in Manchester. Such carers provide emotional support to those who are suffering from mental health traumas or illnesses.

An Asian neighbour who gave his name as Wajid, said: ‘I was doing such a course, and she told me she was a peer support worker herself. She said she travelled to Manchester for her shifts at a hospital.’

It is not known how she knows Al-Shamie, who lived 20 miles away in Prestwich. But one neighbour, who did not want to be named, said he saw Al-Shamie on the street a few months ago. Unemployed Al-Shamie, a British national of Syrian descent, was shot dead outside the synagogue.

Two men aged 30 and 32 and a 61-year-old woman were arrested at a house in Prestwich, Greater Manchester, hours after the attack. On Friday night, the 46-year-old woman was arrested at her house in the Farnworth area of Bolton, along with a 43-year-old man and an 18-year-old woman.

All six were arrested on charges of ‘suspicion of commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism.’

Last night, Greater Manchester Police said that it obtained a warrant of further detention for the 46-year-old NHS worker and the three arrested on Thursday, who can now be detained for a further five days under terrorism powers.

Al-Shamie is believed to have been married to a British Pakistani woman in Manchester with whom he has a child, who is now two years old.

However, the couple are understood to be separated, with his wife living with her parents in the Burnage area of the city. This weekend, a family member of the woman came out of the house and told the MoS: ‘We are as distressed as anyone else about this. We do not want to talk, sorry.’

It has also emerged that Al-Shamie was under investigation for a recent rape claim against him. Last night, Greater Manchester Police refused to give more details, except confirming that the alleged victim was not a minor.

He has convictions for other offences, but was not known to counter-terrorism police or Prevent, the Government’s deradicalisation programme.