Featured Image Credit: Family Handout
Topics: UK News, Jay Slater, Travel
Brenna Cooper
One of the last people to see Jay Slater alive has spoken out about what happened when the British teenager came to stay at his Airbnb.
On 17 June, 2024, 19-year-old Jay vanished while on holiday with friends in Tenerife.
The group had travelled to the Spanish island to attend NRG Music Festival. After the festival ended, Jay decided to travel back to a rental property in the mountain village of Masca with Ayub Qassim and an unnamed man who he met at the festival.
Jay, from Lancashire, would vanish the following day while trying to get back to his hotel in Los Cristianos. His body was found a month later, with the cause of death being given as traumatic head injuries consistent with a fall from height.
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Slater's disappearance attracted substantial attention on social media, with online sleuths focusing on the group of friends the apprentice bricklayer had travelled out with, as well as Qassim and the other man at the Airbnb.
31-year-old Qassim has now spoken out about being caught up in Jay's disappearance and the scrutiny which came with being one of the last people to see the teenager alive.
Speaking on a podcast episode hosted by detective Mark Williams-Thomas, Qassim revealed that he'd offered to bring Slater back to his Airbnb after the festival as he wanted to continue partying.
"I genuinely, from the bottom of my heart, let a guy come to my house, because he said to me ‘mate they’ve all left’ and chatting to them, they said he wanted to carry on partying," he said.
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"I’m black, it’s an unfortunate situation. I’m being nice in letting someone stay at mine and now I’m public enemy number one."
Qassim also responded to questions posed by Williams-Thomas about the knives which Slater was said to have been carrying on him at the time. According to the teenager's inquest, a friend of Slater's testified that he'd received an image of him showing 'knives down his trousers' alongside the caption: "In case it kicks off."
Qassim denied knowledge that Slater was carrying a weapon, telling the former police detective: "I was asleep upstairs this is the first I’ve heard of knives."
He went on to add that he'd offered to give Slater a lift back to the south side of the island later on 17 June, however, he'd been adamant to catch a bus back.
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"He (Jay) said to me 'pal I'm off, this woman told me I can get a bus every 10 minutes'," Qassim recalled. "I told him that he’s mad, there’s no bus that’s coming here every 10 minutes, chill out for a bit and I’ll drop you off later on.
"He said: 'No, no I’ve got to go to Los Cristianos, I need to scram, I need to chip out’. There’s nothing more that I could do. I saw him walk off maybe down the steps."
The last person to see Jay alive was a cafe owner, who recalled him asking her about bus times before deciding not to wait two hours for a service, The Independent reports.
She said she saw him 'walking away fast' out of the village, and his phone was last detected nearby in the Rural de Teno National Park.