Chicken shop terror arrest: What happened when the London Tube suspect was finally caught
Staff say the arrest was carried out by policeman dressed as ‘homeless man’
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails
Sign up to our free breaking news emails
Sign up to our free breaking news emails
In the corner of Aladdins – “the best chicken shop in Hounslow” according to one customer – a little girl sat eating her chips and singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”.
By Monday lunchtime, news had yet to filter through to some that Yahyah Farroukh, the “quiet” 21-year-old who worked here frying chickens, had been arrested outside the front door on Saturday night, on suspicion of involvement in the Parsons Green bucket bomb attack.
A man dressed as if he was homeless had, staff said, revealed himself to be an undercover police officer and helped lead the charge to arrest the refugee from Syria.
“Three blokes and a woman came running past and he was rugby tackled to the floor,” one witness told The Sun.
“The guy was screaming. The cops were shouting to get his phone. I guess because it holds important information.
“They called for back-up. They were holding him down.
“A forensic team wrapped his arms in plastic up to his biceps and his legs up to his thighs. They put plastic on his shoes then put him in overalls and plastic cuffs.”
“As soon as I saw them wrapping him up,” the witness added, “I knew it was really serious.”
And yet, on a quiet afternoon a day and a half later, the only visible sign of Saturday night’s arrest and subsequent police search of Aladdins was the occasional visiting TV news crew.
The formica tables of the west London chicken and burger bar filled with the usual customers – boisterous schoolchildren, passing workers, long-term regulars – some still blissfully unaware of what had happened at the weekend.
The father of the singing three-year-old girl was amazed when The Independent told him the news.
“I heard someone had been arrested in Hounslow,” said Ryadh Houchala, 42, an Uber cab driver, “But I wasn’t expecting it to be from this place.
“This is the best chicken shop in Hounslow, a family place, not for drunk people.”
“I have been coming here for 17 years,” added Mr Houchala. “All the staff seemed OK.”
Shown a photograph of Farroukh, Mr Houchala seemed to think he recognised him.
“It’s strange,” he said, “Scary.”
Suleman Sarwar, 43, one of the four blameless brothers who run Aladdins, was almost as surpised as Mr Houchala.
"This is all very overwhelming,” he admitted, “Not a thing you're equipped for or used to.”
He had not seen the arrest himself, but was soon told about it by staff, who recounted seeing an apparently homeless man reveal himself to be an undercover police officer as their hitherto unremarkable colleague was arrested.
With a polite smile, Mr Sarwar fielded the questions that invariably follow a terror-related arrest.
“Not even an inkling,” he said, when asked if there had been any signs of anything suspicious in Farroukh’s behaviour. “Honest to God, no. Nothing.”
Yes, Farroukh had prayed regularly – but so had everyone else, staff and customers alike, who used the restaurant’s upstairs prayer room.
“He didn’t look outwardly religious at all,” said Mr Sarwar. “He dressed like any other twenty-something: jeans, T-shirt, no distinct beard. Very, very, very normal.”
Farroukh had been working at Aladdins for about six months. He only ever worked in the kitchen and never served customers. The standard of the Syrian refugee’s English, said Mr Sarwar, allowed for little else.
“His language wasn’t perfect. It was hard to communicate with him.
“He was very quiet. There wasn’t much conversation to be had from him. About the only thing I remember him saying to me was that he had a sister in Canada.”
And then came Saturday night’s arrest, shortly after Aladdins closed for the night at 11.30pm, at the end of Farroukh’s shift, which had started at about 6.30pm.
Police came to search the restaurant on Sunday night. Mr Sarwar said a team of eight plainclothes officers and three uniformed colleagues took away CCTV recordings and examined Farroukh’s locker.
“It was totally empty,” said Mr Sarwar.
The restaurant manager confirmed that the police had asked for all documentation relating to Farroukh’s employment, including photocopies of papers confirming he had permission to work in the UK.
Apart from that, though, nearly all the questions Mr Sarwar was asked related to how to get access to all areas of the restaurant.
“They already seemed to have plenty of information [on Farroukh],” said Mr Sarwar, “More than I could give them.”
"I hope that the police get to the bottom of this," he added.
But after an arrest that seemed so shocking to him, Mr Sarwar certainly wasn’t going to jump to any conclusions.
Farroukh had yet to be charged with any offence, he cautioned, when asked to speculate about how the chicken shop worker might have turned jihadi.
“We still don’t know whether or not he was turned,” said Mr Sarwar. “Obviously the police have found something to say they should arrest him, but I simply don’t know if he really has done something.”
As the schoolkids jostled and chatted, as a father told his three-year-old daughter to eat her chips nicely, “one by one”, there was no denying it was hard to associate Aladdins with the location for anything like a counter-terrorism arrest.
“You think you can trust people,” said Mr Houchala, as his daughter finished her chips. “And then something like this happens.”