London Bridge terrorist Khuram Butt was watched by 1.2million viewers on Channel 4 documentary while under investigation by MI5
LONDON Bridge killer Khuram Butt slipped through the security net despite being watched by MI5 — and 1.2 million TV viewers.
He made no secret of his support for extremism on Channel 4 documentary The Jihadis Next Door last year.
He was filmed praying with a black ISIS flag.
Butt, 27, and Rachid Redouane, 30, were named as two of the three terrorists who killed seven people and left 48 injured in a van and knife attack on Saturday night.
The name of the third terrorist had not been released.
Butt and his fellow fanatics clashed with police after targeting moderate Muslims in London outside Regent’s Park mosque.
But despite 1.2 million tuning in — and the jihad beast being under investigation - he managed to keep hiding in plain sight from police and MI5.
After once being seen as one of the UK’s biggest dangermen, he slipped down the priority list.
Meanwhile, a new image of Butt has emerged showing him posing in his London Underground uniform just a few years before he would become a mass murderer.
The twisted jihadist had a young family and worked at KFC before it is understood he got a job on the London Underground as a customer services assistant in May 2016.
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The photo shows the skinny jihadi performing a two-fingered salute as he stares blankly into camera.
He wears a bright orange jacket as he poses in front of train tracks - which suggests he may have held another position with TFL other than just customer service assistant.
A source said: "He started working there last year and then just stopped. He was a customer services assistant.
"It’s just awful to think that someone like that could get a job working amongst all those people on a daily basis. It does make it very worrying, especially considering that all the security checks that should have been in place.
"Considering all the things that have happened before – what happened on Saturday night could have happened anywhere."
TFL have revealed that Butt left his job in October last year after only a few months of work.
Meanwhile, it has also emerged Butt's Whatsapp profile picture is not an image of himself, but lines from the Quran.
They state: "Speak justice. Speak kindly. Speak politely. Speak fairly. Speak gently," reported.
And the killer wrote on his Whatsapp profile on May 10: "Allah says (Quran 94.6) - Indeed, with hardship, comes ease."
His last message was sent on Wednesday at 6.59pm, three days before the attack.
Met Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley confirmed yesterday the mass murderer — whose gang mowed down victims in a van then butchered innocents with knives — was on the radar of the police when he launched Saturday’s atrocity.
But covert surveillance had failed to turn up any evidence he was plotting carnage.
Mr Rowley said even tips to an anti-terror hotline, some believed to be from the beast’s own family, were “not evidence of any criminal offence”.
He insisted: “There was no intelligence to suggest that this attack was being planned.
“The investigation had been prioritised accordingly.”
Rowley also urged for radical reform in preventing jihadi attacks as the threat is now at a “completely different” level of danger.
“In nine weeks we’ve had five plots foiled and three successful attacks. That is completely different to anything we have seen for a long time.”
He continued: “As the prime minister has indicated we’re going to need to do some things differently.
"We’re going to have to think again about the next iteration of our police and security service model, which has constantly had to innovate over many decades.”
Rowley said of Butt: “We will probably discover information on covert communications that were [not in] our knowledge that if we had access to those communications it may have changed our judgment.”
Butt’s two cohorts were not known to authorities.
But he had links to hate preachers including Mohammed Shamsuddin, 40 — seen with him in the documentary that was screened in January last year.
Shamsuddin angrily clashed with police who challenged the extremists about their ISIS flag. He was detained and searched.
The dad of four had sparked an outcry in 2010 by leading a protest as the evil attacker of Labour MP Stephen Timms was jailed for life.
The mob hurled abuse at the judge and yelled at a Muslim juror: “Shame on you, sister.”
Shamsuddin was a disciple of notorious hate cleric Omar Bakri.
Butt worshipped another — Anjem Choudary.
He was also linked to bile-spewing Abu Haleema — seen in the documentary gloating with Shamsuddin over an ISIS beheading video.
Shamsuddin joked: “The guy is foaming at the mouth, you know what I mean. Wow.”
Bus driver Haleema cooed: “That’s HD quality, bruv.”
Another feature in the documentary was ex-bouncy castle salesman Siddhartha Dhar, 33, who fled to Syria and became an ISIS executioner dubbed “Jihadi Sid”.
Last night Shamsuddin’s brother said of Butt: “If my brother is something to do with him, then he needs to go to prison.”
But he blamed social media for fuelling radicalism — not anything his brother had spouted.
He said: “It’s on Facebook and YouTube — you just Google it and all the videos are there. It needs to stop.”
Arsenal fan Butt was also linked to 7/7 bomber Mohammed Siddique Khan, one of four men who killed 52 people on London’s transport network in 2005.
Butt helped as an assistant at all-Muslim gym Ummah Fitness run by Sajeel Shahid, 41, who was part of hate preacher Choudary’s network which allegedly helped set up weapons training in Pakistan for the 7/7 murderers.
Arsenal footie fan Butt lived with his wife, two kids and his mother in Barking, East London — eight miles from the scene of Saturday’s atrocity.
He was on benefits before getting a job with London Underground as a customer services assistant for five months. That ended last October.
He then worked for a month as a guard for a Docklands-based security firm.
Butt was desperate to find another job quickly because his wife was heavily pregnant with their second child.
He told one would-be employer that he had a licence from the Security Industry Authority.
He also claimed to have a “proven track record” and said he could “work under intense pressure”.
And he described himself as a “strong team player with extensive communication skills”.
Butt had left Rokeby Secondary School in Stratford, East London, with just a handful of low-grade GCSEs.
He studied for A-levels at St Angela’s sixth form college and managed to scrape two.
A series of low-paid jobs followed, including working for a removal firm and as a TopShop stockroom assistant.
His longest period in work was between 2012 and 2015 when he held an office manager post for a KFC franchise in East Ham.
The Met’s Mr Rowley confessed Butt was still being investigated as a low-priority case when he launched Saturday’s horror.
The Pakistan-born British citizen had come under police radar in 2015 — even before the TV documentary.
Others who featured in it included Abdul Hakim and Abu Musab Al Gharieg.
Mr Rowley said: “All the work carried out never provided any evidence or intelligence about attack planning.
“As time went on it went down the list of priority into the lower echelons of current investigations.
“He was moved to the lower echelons of importance but was still on the list of 500 current investigations.”
Mr Rowley said he had seen “nothing yet that a poor decision was made”.
He added: “The security and intelligence services and police have stopped 18 plots since 2013, including five since the Westminster attack two months ago.”
Neighbours have revealed that Butt had asked them for advice on hiring a van.
It yesterday emerged he last accessed his WhatsApp profile at 17.59 on Wednesday.
His sister Haleema, 28, who lives in Harrow, North West London, said she last saw him just 24 hours before his murderous rampage.
She confirmed as police quizzed relatives: “I was the last person in my family to see him.
“Of course he gave no idea about what was going to happen.”
Mohammed Shafiq, boss of respected Muslim organisation the Ramadhan Foundation, told how Butt had slammed him for condemning the terrorist murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby.
Butt branded him a “traitor”.
Mr Shafiq said: “I am not surprised that Khuram Butt carried out the terrorist attack.
“There are serious questions for the authorities.”
All three were shot dead by armed police.
Questions were being asked of security spooks who placed Butt on a watchlist of 3,000 extremists potentially involved in 500 live terror plots.
Accomplice Radouane, who was a pastry chef, travelled to the UK from Ireland before the attacks.
He is thought to have come to Britain in 2009 and had told authorities he was Moroccan and Libyan.
His wife Charisse O’Leary was last night released without charge by cops.
The bombshell revelations came as:
- ARMED cops carried out raids and arrests on a former brothel in Dagenham, East London, and a family home in the neighbouring borough of Newham;
- MET Police commissioner Cressida Dick warned of an “unprecedented” wave of terror attacks;
- VILE video rants by hate preachers were still available on YouTube and Facebook;
- BUSINESSMAN James McMullan, 32, from East London, was confirmed as the first Brit to have been killed in the terror atrocity;
- THE family of bride-to-be Christine Archibald told how she died in her fiance’s arms after being run over;
- HERO football fan Roy Larner told how he took on the terrorists single-handedly after shouting at them: “F*** you, I’m Millwall!”;
- DEFIANT Londoners returned to work as normal at London Bridge;
- THOUSANDS last night took part in a vigil in the capital for the victims;
- THERESA May declared Jeremy Corbyn “unfit for office” as she relaunched the general election campaign.
Earlier today The Sun reported how one of the jihadi killers — believed to be Butt — was wearing an Arsenal shirt.
Met Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley later admitted Butt had been on the radar of security services.
He said: “Khuram Shazad Butt was known to the police and MI5.
“However, there was no intelligence to suggest that this attack was being planned and the investigation had been prioritised accordingly.”
Also featured in the Channel 4 film was cleric Mohammed Shamsuddin, a spokesman for jailed terrorism “Pied Piper” Anjem Choudary and Siddhartha Dhar, 33 — who later fled to Syria to become the IS executioner “Jihadi Sid”.