British police investigating Saturday's attack on London Bridge on Tuesday named the third assailant as Youssef Zaghba, a 22-year-old Italian national of Moroccan descent who was from east London.
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Police said Zaghba had not been a subject of interest to police or the domestic spy agency MI5.
However Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera reported on Tuesday that Italian intelligence had reported the man to both Moroccan and British authorities.
The newspaper said he had been arrested at Bologna airport in March 2016 as he tried to catch a flight to Turkey and then travel to Syria. He travelled with a backpack and a one-way ticket, the newspaper said.
Police seized his phone and found images and video of "religious content", though nothing signifying jihadist fundamentalism.
Police had on Monday named the other two attackers as Khuram Butt, aged 27, and Rachid Redouane, aged 30.
Police also said they had made a fresh arrest on Tuesday, detaining a 27-year-old man in Barking, east London.
An Italian intelligence source told Reuters Zaghba's mother lives in the northern Italian city of Bologna and he had broken off relations with his Moroccan father.
Corriere wrote that Zaghba was stopped at Bologna airport in 2016 when he was trying to fly to Syria via Turkey, and that Italian authorities had tipped off Britain about his movements. He was born in the Moroccan city of Fez in 1995.
In Britain's third Islamist attack in as many months, three men on Saturday rammed a van into pedestrians on London Bridge before running into the Borough Market area, where they slit throats and stabbed people indiscriminately.
After a period living together in Morocco, Zaghba's parents separated and the mother returned to Italy, Corriere wrote.
Zaghba visited her at her home near Bologna several times and in March 2016, after being stopped at Bologna airport, he was investigated for possible international terrorist activity but released, according to the newspaper.
However, Italy put him on a list of people considered "at risk," and informed both British and Moroccan authorities of his movements, the paper said.
At the time of the attack he was working in a London restaurant and continued to have contacts with his mother in Italy, which he visited last year, Corriere wrote.
with Reuters
