A 21-year-old student has been named as one of the four men suspected of plotting an attack on Britain.

Gusai Abuzeid, a student at the Greenwich School of Management, was arrested on Tuesday morning when armed police raided their London homes.

Abuzeid is the second suspect to have been named since the arrests on Tuesday morning. The other suspect, Tarik Hassane, 21, is a medical student who studies in Sudan.

Friends of the pair confirmed the two were best friends and painted them as football-loving students who were not involved in any sort of extremism.

“Gusai was a laugh and a joke to be around. Loved his football. Hard-working. He never had his heart in the wrong place,” said Andrew Scott, 20, who said he had known the pair since he was 11.

“Both him and Tarik had morals, and their morals were never wrong. Simple as that. Both had the correct morals: anti-violence. As far as I know, both never got into trouble.”

Referring to a tweet posted by Hassane that said, “Oi lads ... I smell war,” Scott said: “Anyone who knows Tarik Hassane knows his tweets were jokes, that goes with his personality.”

Another student friend, an investment banking intern, said Abuzeid was the “furthest thing from an extremist”.

“He was a chilled-out guy more likely to have a smoke after football than plot a terror attack,” he said.

The friend said Hassane returned from Sudan to celebrate Eid al-Adha with his family. He denied claims from neighbours that Hassane had recently grown distant and withdrawn.

Counter-terrorism officers have been granted a further five days to question the four suspects, who have been held in police custody since Tuesday morning.