Jay Slater: Brit he stayed with in Airbnb breaks his silence - 'he left here alive'

A British tourist who let Jay Slater stay at his Airbnb the night before he went missing has broken his silence on what transpired that evening. 

Ayub Qassim said he invited Jay back to his holiday home after a rave in Tenerife just hours before the 19-year-old disappeared on June 17. 

Speaking to  Mail Online, Qassim, 31, said: " The only comment I have to make is that Jay came to the house alive, and he left the house alive."

The man, who was previously jailed nine years ago for selling Class A drugs continued: "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."

Qassim was one of two men questioned by police as they searched for Jay. Police also spoke to Qassim's unnamed friend, who goes by the alias "Johnny Vegas".

Both men stayed on the island for an extra day, while they were interviewed by officers, who later said they were "irrelevant" to their investigation.

Qassim is now back in the UK, and staying at his family's flat in Barking, east London. The thirty-one-year-old insisted he had not fallen out with Jay and that they had been on good terms when they parted ways.

He told MailOnline: "There were no problems. You've seen the last images of him with his red blanket around him. I don't know if he had beef elsewhere because I don't know him that well, I only know him through friends."

He added: "He ain't got a problem with me, I haven't got a problem with him or his mates. We just all talked to each other and everything was sweet."

In 2015, Qassim was arrested for his part in a London-based gang that smuggled heroin and crack cocaine to Cardiff, Wales. When police raided a property in the city they found cash, mobile phones, drugs and scales. Qassim was sentenced to nine years and nine months. 

Jay returned to Qassim's remote cottage in the village of Masca at 5am on June 17, the day he disappeared.

He is reported to have left the cottage at roughly 7.30am to catch a ride on a bus back to his holiday apartment.

Jay asked a local when the next bus was. When she replied that it was not until 10am, he decided to walk.

It is believed to take around eleven hours to cover the distance on foot from Masca to Jay's accomodation.