A mum says how terrorist Jihad Al-Shamie, who carried out the horrific attack on a synagogue in north Manchester, married her in an Islamic ceremony and then admitted he already had a wife and child
A mum has revealed that synagogue attack terrorist Jihad Al-Shamie begged her to secretly be his ‘second wife’ after the pair were already married.
The hate-filled murderer married the woman in an Islamic ceremony after telling her they could only be in a relationship together if they were man and wife. But Al-Shamie then went on to repeatedly plead for her forgiveness – after finally admitting to her that he already had a wife and a child in Manchester.
In an exclusive interview, the woman tells how, at first, she believed she was in love. But he went on to abuse her both mentally and sexually – ‘constantly’ lying to her to keep his secret safe.
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The Manchester Evening News has revealed messages the woman and Al-Shamie exchanged over years. Speaking exclusively to Mirror sister brand the MEN, the woman revealed that she believed she was in love with the attacker at first, but his behaviour soon changed.
“He was nice, then he was vile. Nice. Vile,” she said. “It was his way or no way. He said that before we had a relationship, we needed to be married.” The woman spoke out as it emerged Al-Shamie had relationships with different women – and possibly more marriages.
In one message to her – which Al-Shamie sent after he admitted he was already married – he said: “Look I’m gonna be honest with you. I do have a wife and a baby son at home. I didn’t tell u because I really liked you and wanted u to be my 2nd wife but I didn’t know how u wud react.”
Then, in another message, he told her: “In Islam a man can have up to 4 wives but these days most women don’t accept it, but I shouldn’t have lied. It was wrong of me.” He went on to tell the woman that he ‘loves her’ and is ‘crazy about you’ – and how he wanted children with her. “My first wife accepts and knows about us,” Al-Shamie wrote. “Please forgive me for the lies.”
Al-Shamie was 35 when he was shot dead by armed police after launching a knife and car attack at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue last Thursday, killing two people and injuring four more.
The woman, who is not being named to protect her, told how she first met Al-Shamie on the Muslim dating app Muzz, formerly known as Muzmatch. That was just before Christmas in 2021 – and they married a month later.
She said they exchanged vows in a ‘Nikah’ ceremony, an Islamic marriage contract ceremony. The M.E.N. has seen their marriage certificate, which is dated January 29, 2022. It states the Nikah was ‘solemnised according to Islamic Law’ and references ‘Jihad Alshamie’ and the woman’s name. The document also references two witnesses and their signatures, as well as the name of an Imam who performed the ceremony.
The woman said it took place over an Internet video call because of Covid restrictions in place at the time. The woman converted to Islam in 2012 and changed her name. She gave the M.E.N. her Certificate of Shahadah, which states she recited the declaration of faith. It’s dated 2012 and was attested by an Imam of the same name as the marriage ceremony document.
She told how throughout their ‘on-off relationship’, Al-Shamie went by different names on social media profiles, including ‘Jiji Shamie’, ‘Jay Ses’ and ‘Jay Shami’. Now 38 and living with her children in the north west, she said Al-Shamie subjected her to coersive and controlling behaviour – and raped her.
She didn’t report that to the police at the time. Tragically, she said she also miscarried his child. The woman sent the M.E.N. screen shots of messages on Facebook messenger the pair exchanged.
In a later message to her, he calls her ‘f*****’ up in the head’ and ‘just a complete headache’. “Good luck getting any guy to deal with your rubbish,” he says. “Your not worth it and I can do better – don’t need someone with your baggage and mental issues.”
In another, he says he has ‘two good jobs’ and offers to buy her an iPad and a tumble drier. He also pledges to leave his home in Manchester and buy a house near to where she lives – a lie he didn’t go through with.
In his hundreds of messages to her, he cuts a desperate figure – and constantly begs for forgiveness as his lies and false promises unravel. “All i want is for us to get back together properly and for me to see u regularly stay over every friday or weekend,” Al-Shamie says in one.
The woman, a practicing Muslim, said: “I thought I loved him at the beginning, because he showed me something that I wanted. He was caring and understanding and didn’t judge my kids for their needs.
“He would smooth talk with a bit of anger if you crossed the line with him. 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.” The woman, who has now been contacted by police, told how she first began chatting to Al-Shamie on the dating site.
She said Al-Shamie told her he was between jobs, and referenced him selling clothes and selling goods on eBay. “We were talking for a little bit, but he was pushy,” she said. “He would say ‘you’re my type’ and ‘you’re good looking and I’m single’. He said he was living with his parents.
“He said he was in between jobs. He was always shifting between jobs apparently.” They met, she said, within the month and then married in the ceremony. Not once, she said, did he invite her to his house. “I just knew it was in Manchester,” she said. “He said he just lived with family and it was a biggish house.”
“At first he was always ringing and texting, saying he was going to the gym,” she said. “He was always wanting to come round. He would ask if my kids were at school and whether he could come around. He was proper pushy.
“Everytime I met him he was pushy – his way or no way. We had to obey by our husbands. What our husbands say, we do. If he’s got needs, we have to fulfil them. It’s our duty to. We just kept talking. I was trying to distance myself but he would always say he loved me and that I meant the world to him. He would say ‘I want this to work’.
“He was slating us as a family, but he was quick to shift the blame. It finally came out he was married with a child. He lied and lied and lied to me, then eventually he came out with it. I think that’s when it broke me. But he still continued to come around.
“He would constantly turn up at my house. When he slept over, I used to sleep on the sofa and pretend that I had fallen asleep so I didn’t have to go upstairs, because I knew what was going to come.”
The woman said Al-Shamie lied to her when women’s clothing was clearly visible in the background in photographs he sent to her. “That’s when I questioned him a lot,” she said. “When he sent pictures, I saw women’s clothes in the background, or some perfume or a bag or shoes. He would say ‘it’s my sister’s’.
“He would say I’m busy at the mosque or the gym – really he was with his wife and kids wasn’t he? He would say that he wasn’t really into his wife, and that she was just ‘there’.”
Al-Shamie refused to allow her to keep photographs of them together, she said. “Wherever he went, his phone went with him,” she said. “He would not leave his phone anywhere – and we know why.”
The woman said she believed Al-Shamie was a devout Muslim – and said he didn’t express any violent ideation or political views when they were together. “He used to pray in my home,” she said. “But he knows how to manipulate you and make you think you’re the bad guy. He would twist things.”
The woman told how she realised Al-Shamie committed the terror attack after returning home from a holiday abroad and seeing his face in the news. “His face was there,” she said. “My first thought was just ‘why’. He would never preach anything. The only thing he would do was pray. He never showed me, or said anything about, terrorism, or joining anything. It was all about the mosque and praying.”
The woman said he last contacted her in April this year. “After that I have not heard anything. He tried after April, but I blanked him.”
Al-Shamie, reportedly a university drop-out, was born in Syria but was granted British citizenship in 2006 when he was around 16, having entered the UK as a young child. He was on police bail accused of rape when he carried out the car and knife attack.
Police said he ‘may have been influenced by extreme Islamist ideology’. Adrian Daulby, 53, and 66-year-old Melvin Cravitz, both from Crumpsall, lost their lives in the attack.