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Aged
, 24,
Finsbury Park, London.
d. 7 July, 2005,
Liverpool Street/ Aldgate Circle line train, London. |
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It was with some trepidation that Ihab Slimane had left home in
France to enjoy a summer in London, three weeks before he died on
a Tube train near Russell Square. His family in Lyon, of Tunisian
origin, said he had expressed some concerns on the eve of his
first trip to the UK. But the 24-year-old was determined to
improve his English and his first
impressions of London were good. He had got a job as a waiter at a
French restaurant in the West End, a home in Finsbury Park and
made plenty of new friends. After he went missing on his way to
work, his father Mohammad Slimane came to the UK and tried
desperately to find him. He told the Guardian his son was Muslim
but not devout and described him as a "timid lad, obedient, kind".
French president Jacques Chirac sent his condolences to the family
and expressed "the solidarity of the entire nation with his family
which has been hit by this terrible sadness". Mr Slimane had just
completed an IT engineering degree from the University Institute
of Technology (IUT) in Saint-Martin d'Heres, near Grenoble. His
long-term ambitions were in computer programming and he intended
to return to his studies in France in September. But he had made a
good start as a waiter. "Ihab had only been working here for two
weeks, but he made a very good impression," said the manager of
Gabrielle's restaurant, Sebastien Marteaux. "He was a nice,
hard-working boy who would do anything you asked of him. He was
always telling jokes and always had a smile on his face." Mr
Slimane's body was reportedly taken to the city of Tunis for
burial.
Courtesy of
BBC

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