ANOTHER wife of the Manchester synagogue terrorist said the attacker “raped” her and lied about being married with a child.
The woman, whose identity is being protected, told how Jihad Al-Shamie abused her mentally and sexually after they first met on Muslim dating app Muzz.
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University drop-out Jihad al-Shamie led a tangled love lifeCredit: Facebook
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The 35-year-old was on police bail accused of rape when he carried out the car and knife terror attack in Manchester on Thursday
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Forensic teams at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogueCredit: AP
She had converted to Islam in 2012, ten years before meeting Al-Shamie.
The woman became trapped in a volatile cycle in which he would flip between being “vile” and then “nice” to draw her back in to their on-and-off relationship.
Eventually, Al-Shamie told the woman he was married and had a son, but confessed to keeping them secret.
In text messages seen by the M.E.N, he wrote: “I didn’t tell u because I really like you and wanted u to be my 2nd wife.”
But Al-Shamie told her men can have four wives in Islamic culture and that his first wife “accepts” it.
Within a month of entering into a relationship with him, the pair married in January 2022.
The woman said their Islamic ceremony took place over a video call because of Covid restrictions.
She claimed Al-Shamie raped her, but she did not report it to police.
The attacker’s abuse is laid out in Facebook messages between the couple.
Chilling moment terrorist’s car hurtles towards synagogue before ploughing into crowd
He tells her: “Good luck getting any guy to deal with your rubbish.”
And: “You’re not worth it and I can do better – don’t need someone with your baggage and mental issues.”
To try and win her back, Al-Shamie would promise grand gestures, such as buying a property close to where she lived, although these never came into fruition.
The woman told M.E.N she thought she loved him at the beginning of their partnership.
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Members of the Armed force prepare a bomb disposal robot inside a cordon outside Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogueCredit: AFP
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Melvin Cravitz, 66, was killed in the attackCredit: Reuters
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Tributes have also been paid to 53-year-old Adrian Daulby who died in the horrorCredit: Greater Manchester Police
“He was caring and understanding and didn’t judge my kids for their needs,” she said.
“He would say ‘I love you, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that’. He was controlling and abusive.
“He did rape me multiple times, but to us we just fulfil what our husband’s say.
“He was one of them where you have got to do it there and then.”
Domestic abuse – how to get help
DOMESTIC abuse can affect anyone – including men – and does not always involve physical violence.
Here are some signs that you could be in an abusive relationship:
Emotional abuse – Including being belittled, blamed for the abuse – gaslighting – being isolated from family and friends, having no control over your finances, what you where and who you speak to
Threats and intimidation – Some partners might threaten to kill or hurt you, destroy your belongings, stalk or harass you
Physical abuse – This can range from slapping or hitting to being shoved over, choked or bitten.
Sexual abuse – Being touched in a way you do not want to be touched, hurt during sex, pressured into sex or forced to have sex when you do not consent.
If any of the above apply to you or a friend, you can call these numbers:
Remember, you are not alone.
1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men will experience domestic abuse over the course of their lifetime.
Every 30 seconds the police receive a call for help relating to domestic abuse.
She categorized their relationship as “his way or no way” and described him as constantly being “pushy” – telling her wives had to “obey” their husbands.
A former friend told The Sun on Sunday that killer Al-Shamie would smoke around 2g of strong skunk a day when he was a teen and frequently felt the wrath of his parents.
His obsession led him to dropping out of Liverpool John Moores University a year into his English, media and cultural studies degree course in 2011.
Meanwhile neighbours said he would spend his time lifting weights in his garage or wander around in his pyjamas and flip flops.
The woman also reflected this portrayal in her tales of Al-Shamie, who she claimed was always “between jobs” and “living with his parents”.
After their relationship ended, the last time Al-Shamie contacted her was April earlier this year, but she ignored him.
A man was left baffled when a family of plane passengers lied to a flight attendant in order to get him to switch seats with them – but he ended up getting the last laugh
The man was furious at the family that approached him on a plane (stock photo)(Image: Alexander Spatari via Getty Images)
Unless you can shell out the money for an upgrade, travelling by plane is often a draining experience. You can find yourself sitting in a cramped space for hours on end next to a complete stranger, and it’s often luck of the draw whether your seatmate has any bizarre habits that make you want to tear your hair out.
But one man has claimed that sometimes, not even getting upgraded to a fancier class makes you exempt from rude passengers who expect you to accommodate them. In fact, he asserted that on one recent flight he took, a family attempted to lie to a flight attendant so that they could take his seat from him.
In a post on Reddit, the man explained he decided to book business class on a recent flight because he could bag himself a window seat while guaranteeing that the middle seat remained unbooked, meaning he’d have a bit more room.
When he boarded his flight, he took his seat across from an older man sitting in the aisle seat on the other side of him. Moments later, however, the other man’s wife and son came in and asked if he would switch seats with them to allow the family to sit together.
But there was one problem – the wife and child were in economy class, so swapping seats would have meant a downgrade.
Warning: The below Reddit post contains strong language.
The man refused this unfavourable offer, and the family made a counteroffer in which the son would sit in the free middle seat with his dad while the mum went back to economy. It turned out they lied to flight attendants on board the plane to make this deal happen.
In his Reddit post, he wrote: “His wife and son came in, asking me to switch (business for economy) so they could all sit there. Then, [they] told me that if I didn’t switch with the wife, the son would sit in the middle at least. [The dad] reasoned that I didn’t need an empty seat next to me and claimed the stewardess allowed it.
“Turned out, [the flight attendant] said it was possible if the other passenger agreed, to which they replied that I was family, so I would 100% agree.”
The man refused to move and told the flight attendants the truth, and the family were eventually made to go back to the seats they had been assigned.
He added: “I didn’t budge. The son and wife had to stay in the economy, and his father spent almost four hours muttering passive-aggressive comments. Whenever I took off my headphones, he was still going…
“Like what the f**k. But shoutout to the stewardesses (another one had to come, because they refused to go back to their seats) for staying professional.”
Commenters on the post were shocked at the family’s behaviour, especially considering that the dad could have swapped with someone in economy class to ensure his family could sit together, but didn’t want to give up his luxury experience.
One person said: “He didn’t give up his seat for his family, just wanted you to.”
Another added: “It’s wild how some people feel entitled to what others paid extra for. Lying about being your family? That’s next-level manipulative. You had every right to your seat and your space. Props to you for standing your ground, and huge respect to the flight attendants for backing you up.”
A third wrote: “The family 100% booked like this on purpose. Get three business class upgrades for the price of one. They probably saw a ‘travel hack’ on TikTok and then were mad when the scam didn’t work. Good on you for not budging.”
Fox News host Jesse Watters acknowledged Thursday that his program made a mistake in reporting on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s phone conversation with President Trump during last month’s immigration raids in Los Angeles.
Newsom filed a $787-million defamation lawsuit against Watters and Fox News on June 27 after the host reported on comments Trump made about a phone call with the governor as tensions heated up over the raids and the president’s decision to deploy the National Guard.
After the lawsuit was filed in a Delaware court, Newsom’s lawyers said they were prepared to drop the suit if the governor got a retraction and a formal on-air apology. The suit claims Fox News willfully distorted the facts about the Trump call to harm the governor politically.
Asked for a reaction to Watters’ remarks about the matter, Newsom showed no signs of backing down. “Discovery will be fun,” he said in a statement. “See you in court buddy.”
Watters’ on-air persona is snarky and tongue-in-cheek and he did not deviate from it when he addressed the Newsom matter. He acknowledged he misunderstood Newsom’s social media post on Trump’s remarks and used the words “I’m sorry.” But it was far from a fulsome apology.
“Fox News invited [Newsom] on the show to talk it out man to man, but he said no,” Watters said.
The dust-up began after Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on June 10 that he spoke to Newsom “a day ago — called him up tell him you’ve got to do a better job, you’re doing a bad job.” Trump’s comment gave the impression that the two spoke on the same day 700 Marines were deployed in Los Angeles.
Newsom refuted the claim in a post on X. The governor had already said publicly he spoke to Trump after midnight Eastern time on June 7 and the National Guard was not discussed. They never spoke after that.
“There was no call,” Newsom posted on X. “Not even a voicemail. Americans should be alarmed that a President deploying Marines onto our streets doesn’t even know who he’s talking to.”
Trump sent Fox News anchor John Roberts a screen shot showing the June 7 date stamp of the phone call, which Watters showed on his program to assert that Newsom was lying when he said they did not speak.
When Watters showed a clip of Trump’s June 10 comments about the call on his program, it omitted the portion where the president said he spoke to Newsom the previous day. A banner at the bottom of the screen read: “Gavin lied about Trump’s call.”
Watters told viewers Thursday he believed Newsom’s X post asserted that the two had not spoken at all.
“‘Not even a voicemail’ — we took that to mean there was no call ever,” Watters said.
“We thought the dispute was about whether there was a phone call at all when he said without qualification that there was no call,” the host continued. “Now Newsom’s telling us what was in his head when he wrote the tweet. He didn’t deceive anybody on purpose, so I’m sorry, he wasn’t lying. He was just confusing and unclear. Next time, governor, why don’t you say what you mean.”
The $787-million figure in the lawsuit is the amount Fox News paid to Dominion Voting Systems to settle another defamation case in 2023. Fox agreed to pay the company, which said the network aired false claims that its voting equipment was manipulated to help President Biden win the 2020 election.
Times staff writer Taryn Luna contributed to this report.