Surviving terror cell member came to UK last year

The only outstanding suspect from the Paris terror cell met with Islamist fanatics in Birmingham just four months before helping coordinate the French atrocity, it has emerged.

Mohamed Abrini, 31, was in the West Midlands city in July last year raising concerns over British links with the Isil cell now behind attacks in both the French capital and Brussels.

He is the second member of the eight-strong group to have been in the UK after it emerged the mastermind behind Paris, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was also in Birmingham and London in the months before the November attacks.

French intelligence sources on Wednesday confirmed that Mohamed Abrini travelled to the UK in July 2015 and “flew back to France from Birmingham”.

Abrini, who is thought to have travelled to Paris with the jihadists the day before they slaughtered 130 people, is a childhood friend of attacker Salah Abdeslam, who was finally caught last week. A small-time criminal and drug dealer who worked in a Brussels bakery at one point, he was nicknamed “Brioche”, after the sweet bun, and brought up with three brothers and two sisters in Molenbeek – the native district of several of the Paris and Brussels jihadists.

When France issued a warrant for his arrest last year, he was described as “dangerous and probably armed”.