Ayub Qassim was one of the last people to see the 19-year-old before he vanished in Tenerife
Missing British teenager Jay Slater “came to the house alive, and he left the house alive”, the Airbnb guest who put him up has insisted.
Ayub Qassim and another British man, who has not been named, were some of the last people to see the 19-year-old before he vanished on June 17.
They drove him from a music festival in Tenerife to a holiday rental cottage nearly 20 miles away.
Mr Slater, who was last seen walking up a steep road before calling a friend to say he was lost and desperately thirsty, has been missing for 18 days.
Mr Qassim was questioned by Spanish police after he vanished but was allowed to return to Britain. He has a previous conviction for drug offences and was jailed for nine years for helping to import heroin and crack cocaine to Cardiff.
“The only comment I have to make is that Jay came to the house alive, and he left the house alive,” he told MailOnline on Wednesday.
He reportedly booked the £40-a-night holiday rental online under the name Ayub Abdul and said he allowed Mr Slater to stay as “a favour”.
Mr Slater, an apprentice bricklayer from Lancashire, had travelled to Tenerife with two friends and attended the NRG music festival in Playa de las Americas, a popular party spot in the south of the island.
In the early hours of June 17, he drove with the two men, who he is believed to have met just days before, to a cottage known as Casa Abuela Tina, in the small mountain village of Masca in the north west of the island.
After setting off from their accommodation he rang a friend and said he was lost, thirsty, had one per cent charge left on his phone and had cut his leg on a cactus. His mobile ran out of power shortly after the call.
The Guardia Civil scoured the nearby Rural de Teno national park for 13 days before calling the search off on Sunday. The force has insisted that Mr Qassim and the other man “don’t have any relevance” to the case.
But Mr Slater’s family have questioned why the two grown men took the teenager to a remote cottage before he disappeared.
Mr Qassim said: “I let the geezer stay at mine because he had nowhere else to go, his friends had all left him. I know Jay, through friends, I’m not going to bring someone back to mine if I don’t know them.
“I’m doing the geezer a favour and now my face is all over the news. It’s a bit mental. I haven’t even done anything.”
: Jamie Lorriman
: Jamie Lorriman
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