Widow of Westminster attacker 'sorry she was not more vigilant'

The widow of the man responsible for last year’s Westminster terrorist attack in which five people died and dozens were injured has said she is sorry she was not “more vigilant” and described her husband as “evil”.

Rohey Hydara wept during the inquest into the deaths as she apologised to survivors and families of the victims. She spoke about her marriage to Khalid Masood, who killed four pedestrians and a police officer in a car and knife attack in March last year.

“He made me trust him and I had no reason to doubt him,” she said. “I know it’s hard. It is for me every day. I cannot imagine what you guys are going through. I hope my being here today will give you answers you seek. I cannot believe I was married to someone that evil. I hope that you find closure at the end of all this and you move on and do not let him win.”

During evidence at the Old Bailey, where the press were cleared from the room to listen via an audio link in another room, Hydara told how on the day of the attack her husband sent a message to her phone with a pdf containing Islamic verses. She said she had grown increasingly concerned and called police after seeing an image of the attacker’s body on the news. She told them: “I think my husband has been involved in what has happened at Westminster.”

She came under sustained pressure during cross-examination by a lawyer for four of the victims’ families, who put it to her that she was playing down her knowledge of her husband’s extremism. She said she had come to “tell the truth” and had no knowledge of how her husband had been radicalised.

“Isn’t it the truth that you know full well that in those final months he was going down a dangerous path,” said Gareth Patterson QC, who referred to Masood’s possession of extremist materials, his talk of death, his behaviour and his sudden attempts to patch things up with his estranged family.

“I categorically deny that,” said Hydara, who said she was unaware of conversations between Masood and their children in which he said he would die fighting for Allah.

Hydara, who the inquest was told was from a Gambian background, had said at the outset of her testimony that when they married 10 years previously she had hoped to make Masood less religious, while he had hoped to make her more so.

She went on to paint a picture of a tempestuous relationship in which they were separated on a number of occasions, sometimes over her concerns about his steroid use. Three audio recordings said to have been made by Hydara were played at the inquest. Masood could be heard haranguing his wife in monologues in which he attacked her for never seeing “the good” in Islamic State or for failing to obey him.

Earlier, Masood’s mother told the inquest she “knew immediately” that it was her son when she saw an image of his body after learning of the attack on the 10 o’clock news.

Janet Ajao said her son had always been a “fiery personality” who liked drinking and fighting in the years before he converted to Islam and she had worried even then that he might kill someone.

Referring to her son as Adrian, his name before converting to Islam, Ajao recalled the last time she had seen him, when he visited her days before the attack. It had been several years since they had seen each other when he initially met her in hospital, where her husband was being treated, she said.

“He just looked at me and said: ‘They will say I am a terrorist but I am not,’” she said of his last words to her, which he uttered as he left the kitchen in her home the following day. “He walked away and I did not say anything. That was basically because I had no idea what he was referring to.”

Later, under cross-examination by the counsel for those who lost their lives in the attack, she repeated her earlier insistence that she had never suspected her son was being radicalised or turning towards violent terrorism.

“I never regarded it as radicalisation. He has taken it on board and he has chosen to follow it. I never thought of terrorism at all.”

Ajao said she was “utterly ashamed” of the act Masood had committed last year. Asked by counsel if she had been aware of terrorist attacks in recent years, she responded: “I am aware of them and I had no idea that one of my children could commit them. I am utterly ashamed. I am ashamed.”

The court heard Masood had long harboured resentment towards her over the fact his two brothers had got into grammar school and went on to have successful careers, while he had gone to a comprehensive.

At one point, Ajao broke down in tears as she spoke about an email sent by Masood in 2013, which prompted her to wonder where she had “gone wrong” while raising him.

“I sat there weeping … I was horrified and I spent a long time thinking about it,” she said of the email. “I remember spending years thinking: ‘What did I do wrong when I was raising these three sons? What should I have done?’ and it was unbearable.”

Ajao recalled her son’s transformation on emerging in 2004 from prison, where he had embarked on his conversion.

“He had met someone in prison who advised him, explained to him,” she said, adding how her son would harangue her on the telephone about the tenets of his newfound faith. “He never stopped talking about it. On and on and on. He would telephone and I would want to say: ‘How are you? How are things? How are the children?’

“I could put my phone down, walk across the room and make a cup of tea and he would still be on.”

She said she had no recollection of her son having “extremist views” or expressing views that were hostile towards the west.

The inquest continues.