The man suspected of driving a car into pedestrians outside the Houses of Parliament in London on Tuesday is a British national originally from Sudan whom friends in Birmingham have described as “a polite and decent chap”.

Salih Khater, 29, describes himself on Facebook as a shop manager, but friends said he was doing casual work in security. He graduated from Wad Madani high school in east-central Sudan before reportedly studying electrical engineering at Sudan University of Science and Technology in Khartoum. He is thought to have come to the UK about eight years ago.

The University of Coventry confirmed that Khater studied accountancy there from September 2017 until May this year when he failed his exams and his enrolment was terminated.

Khater lived in a flat above a barber shop on Stratford Road in Sparkhill, Birmingham, for nine months, moving out four months ago. It is understood he then moved to the 10th floor of Brinklow Tower, in the Highgate area of the city. There was a police presence at both addresses on Tuesday.

Neighbours said he spent most of his time socialising with friends at the Bunna internet cafe and shisha lounge next door. One friend said he had attended a wedding party two days ago and enjoyed a game of football in a local park last week.

Ahmed Abdi, 43, who was sitting in a cafe next-door-but-one to the Bunna internet cafe on Wednesday morning, told the Guardian he had been shocked to see Khater’s face on the TV. “He was very quiet, always smoking shisha and looking at his phone,” he said. Abdi said Khater was constantly reading the news.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Customers sit outside the Bunna internet cafe. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Michael Hagos, 35, drinking coffee outside the Bunna cafe, was among the many locals who said they did not believe the Westminster incident was terrorism. “I think it was an accident,” he said. “People around here think it was an accident.”

Dr Mahdi Khair, a physician who said he regularly played football with Khater, defended his friend, saying: “He’s not the kind of a man that you can throw the allegation of terrorist attack at. He was a polite and decent chap and he never got into conflict with anybody at all.” He added: “He’s a solid, decent guy. We have to stick up for him.”

Khair said Khater had gone to London on Monday night to visit the Sudanese embassy – less than a mile from the Palace of Westminster – to try to get a visa to visit his family in Sudan. It is understood that his family are farmers, that his father and brother died last year and that his mother and other siblings still live in Sudan.

Speaking to the BBC, Khater’s brother Abdullah said Khater had no links to any fanatical religious group and the family were in a state of shock after the incident.

At a press conference, Nassar Mahmood, a trustee at Birmingham central mosque, said Khater did not come to the mosque and his friends “did not know him as a fervent worshipper”.

“He’s the not the kind of person we usually see committing these kinds of crimes,” he said. “They’re usually loners and keep themselves to themselves.”

Ali Mohamed, an elder in Birmingham’s Sudanese community, suggested Khater may have swerved his car because he was tired after driving the long distance from Birmingham. “He is a very sociable and stable person,” he said. Speaking to the Guardian, he echoed Mahmood’s comments that Khater did not fit the usual profile of those involved in Islamist terrorism.

Speaking to the Guardian from Khartoum, Hamid Karda, who said he went to high school with Khater in al-Jazirah state in central Sudan, said Khater was passionate about football. He said he was not a conservative Muslim nor affiliated to any political parties when he was studying engineering at university in the Sudanese capital.

As well as three addresses in Birmingham, police searched one in Nottingham on Tuesday, where Khater was also registered as having lived. Neighbours said it was home to six Sudanese people. The Nottingham Post reported that the car involved in the incident was registered to an address in Nottingham. The current owner of the vehicle bought it on 20 June this year.

Khater’s Facebook profile, which was deleted on Wednesday afternoon, consisted largely of photos of desert scenes. In 2010 he showed enthusiasm for pop music, posting a video of Celine Dion singing Because You Love Me and another of Eminem’s Love the Way You Lie.

Among the pages he liked on Facebook those of Fort Wayne Indiana, London Metropolitan University and the KPI Institute, a business research institute, as well as an “I am Sudanese” page.

He also liked a Facebook page about how “a Birmingham school is giving students the skills to deal with and protect themselves from extremism and radicalisation”. He listed his favourite quote as: “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.”