ROME—The Italian mother of the third London Bridge killer to be identified, Youssef Zaghba, has spoken about the last contact she had with her son and expressed her desire to fight the ideology spread by Islamic State, speaking in an exclusive interview with Italian weekly L’Espresso.

 Valeria Khadija Collina, an Italian citizen who converted to Islam 26 years ago, told L’Espresso:“I understand the Imams who don’t want to celebrate his funeral, and I share their choice, because it’s necessary to give off a strong political signal.”

 Valeria was due to travel to England in a fortnight to celebrate the end of Ramadan, which she discussed with her son in her last communication with him before the attack on June 1, just two days before it took place.

 “In hindsight, I realise now that in his plans that was the farewell telephone call. Even though he didn’t say anything in particular, I heard it in his voice,” she told L’Espresso.

 The following day neither Youssef’s father nor his friends were able to contact him and Valeria reported him missing to the authorities. 

 The initial news of the London attack did not ring any alarm bells for Valeria and it was only after the attackers were identified as his friends that she began to wonder if he was hiding from the authorities.

 Then, on Tuesday morning, agents from Digos di Bologna knocked on her door to inform her of her son’s death. Valeria was already familiar with the agents and said she had a “good relationship with them”, after her son was stopped and interrogated at Bologna airport in 2016 en route to Syria.

 Valeria blames the Internet for her son’s radicalisation and actions but stated she had no idea about his affiliation with Islamic State.

 “He showed me some videos on Syria, but never spoke to me about going to fight,” she said.

 “For him Syria was a place where you could live according to a pure Islam. I always told him there were horrible things they weren’t showing him,” she added.

 Valeria says that her son fell in with the wrong crowd online and this was made worse when he went to London.

 Now she is determined to dedicate her life to ensuring that other families don’t have to experience the same pain.

 “We have to combat the ideology of Islamic State with true knowledge and I will do that with all my force.”