Neighbours of the suspected bus bomber Muktar Said-Ibrahim have described him as a devout loner who handed out religious pamphlets.

Sarah Scott, a neighbour in Stanmore, northwest London, said that Said-Ibrahim gave her a book called Understanding Islam in which he had highlighted specific passages.

One highlighted passage read: "Anyone who says ‘there is no God (worthy of worship) except Allah’ and dies holding to that (belief) will enter paradise."

Miss Scott, 23, said today that she had known Said-Ibrahim for 12 years and described him as a loner who thought London was full of "evil spirits". She said that he gave her the pamphlet last November after they had been discussing religion and he asked what her religion was.

"He asked me if I was Christian or a Catholic because my family come from Ireland. I said I was neither - that I was atheist. He said I should (believe in God) and that he was going to get me some information," she said.

Another highlighted passage describes how to choose to follow Islam. It states: "God gave us all minds and intelligence to enable us to make this crucial decision."

Miss Scott described Said-Ibrahim as a "loner" who regularly went to a mosque. She said that he had never mentioned jihad but said he believed there were evil spirits all around.

"He talked about evil spirits, he said there were a lot of evil spirits around because everyone was evil around here," she said. "He never mentioned anything about terrorism but he didn’t like the way kids hung around smoking."

Said-Ibrahim has been named by the Metropolitan Police as the man who tried to blow himself up on the No 26 bus passing through Bethnal Green last Thursday while three fellow Islamists tried unsuccessfully to launch bomb attacks on the Underground.

He was born in Eritrea in war-torn eastern Africa but grew up in Britain after arriving in 1992 as the son of an asylum-seeker. He applied for a full British passport two years ago and received it last September.

For the past two years, Said-Ibrahim was thought to have lived with Yasin Hassan Omar, the man suspected of trying to blow up a Victoria Line train near Warren Street, in a flat in Bounds Green, North London, raided by police yesterday. Police sources said a large amount of materials suitable for making bombs was found in the flat.

Yasin Hassan Omar is said to be a Somali national who entered the UK in 1992 aged 11 as the child of an asylum seeker, and was granted leave to remain indefinitely in May 2000.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Sarah Brown and the ladies who tweet
• Open letter to a hero's daughters, from the daughter of a murdered officer
• Transplant drug extends life in mice