Yahoo News Man who Jay Slater visited at Tenerife Airbnb before vanishing addresses 'problems'
A Brit who was with Jay Slater at an Airbnb in Tenerife before the teenager vanished has insisted everything was fine when he left, amid allegations that he 'had taken a £12,000 Rolex watch'.
Ayub Qassim, who let the apprentice bricklayer crash at his accommodation near the village of Masca village, claimed he 'did Jay a favour' by letting him stay after they had travelled there with another friend in the early hours of June 17. They had previously been to a rave on the south of the island and Jay, from Oswaldtwistle, took off from the Airbnb later that morning and hasn't been seen since.
Former British police detective Mark Williams-Thomas, who is helping Jay's family in Tenerife, yesterday (July 3) claimed in a video posted on X that the 19-year-old had told his pals he had 'taken a £12,000 Rolex' and had posted a Snapchat about the watch. He said: "We've been unable to validate this in terms of a reported theft.
READ MORE: Man who let Jay Slater stay at Airbnb breaks silence saying 'he left alive'
"However, friends of Jay said he would not make this up and the watch was subject of later conversation between the friends."
The investigator also claimed Jay was 'scared' when he left the Airbnb. However, Qassim said that as far as he knew, "there had been no problems".
Speaking to the MailOnline, he said: "If I'd fallen out with him would he even come to mine? There were no problems.
"You've seen the last images of him with his red blanket around him. I don't know if he had beef elsewhere because I don't know him that well, I only know him through friends."
According to reports, Qassim was jailed nine years ago for being the mastermind behind a sophisticated operation to flood Wales with Class A drugs, the M.E.N reports. Spanish Police have already spoken to him and the unnamed pal he was travelling with - though officers on the ground said the pair were 'irrelevant' to the investigation.
Earlier reports suggested that officers were probing claims of a nightclub scuffle over a stolen Rolex in the hours before Jay vanished. It was claimed that a fight had broken out outside Papagayo Beach Club - where Jay was pictured partying - involving a man who said his Rolex watch had been stolen.
Shortly after, police in Tenerife were reportedly following a new lead connected to Jay's disappearance. At the time, it was unclear how this incident could be linked to Jay's case, but one mate suggested he might've gone to search for the watch.
Following these allegations, police reportedly shifted their focus to CCTV and security camera footage of where the alleged brawl occurred, according to MailOnline. Mr Williams-Thomas has claimed that Jay was scared when he left the holiday rental where he was last spotted, adding the teenager couldn't return to the property, despite this being the most 'sensible course of action'.
It is unclear where the alleged stolen Rolex was at this time. The ex-cop said: "We have received information that would suggest Jay left the rental property feeling scared and that he would not return to the rental, even though that would have been the most sensible course of action, and also where he could have charged his phone and got water."
Qassim, who has since returned home to east London, said that Jay 'came to the Airbnb alive and left alive'. "I let the geezer stay at mine because he had nowhere else to go, his friends had all left him", he said.
"I know Jay, through friends, I'm not going to bring someone back to mine if I don't know them. I'm doing the geezer a favour and now my face is all over the news.
"It's a bit mental. I haven't even done anything."
Jay, who was on holiday with his pals Lucy Law, 18, and Brad Hargreaves, 19, had previously been partying at in Playa de las Americas, before leaving the event to go back to the rented property. His last known location was the Rural de Teno Park in the north of the Canary Island – which was about an 11-hour walk back to his accommodation.
At around 8.30am on the morning of his disappearance, Jay called Lucy to say he was in the middle of nowhere, trying to get home with no water and 1 per cent on his phone battery. That was the last time anyone heard from him.
After almost two weeks of hunting for the teenager in vast and mountainous terrain, police called off the search on the ground for him. On June 30, they said officers would continue to act on any tip-offs or other information that came in but the active work that has been ongoing since the apprentice bricklayer was reported missing would cease.
