“Jihadi John,” the masked Islamic State (IS) group militant believed responsible for beheading at least five Western hostages, has been named as Kuwaiti-born computing graduate Mohammed Emwazi from London.
“Jihadi John,” nicknamed after Beatle John Lennon due to his British accent, is believed to be responsible for the murders of US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, and US aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig.
He also appeared in a video with Japanese hostages Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto shortly before they were killed.
Photo: Reuters
Families of the murdered hostages said they looked forward to seeing Emwazi brought to justice.
A Washington Post report citing friends, a leading think tank researching foreign jihadists and a British security official quoted by the New York Times identified Emwazi as the executioner.
However, London’s Metropolitan Police dismissed the reports as “speculation” and said it was “not going to confirm his identity” to protect human lives, while the US National Security Council said it would neither confirm nor deny the reports.
The family of Sotloff said they hoped establishing the identity of the killer would bring him closer to facing justice.
“The Sotloff family was informed of John’s identity. This is one step on a long road to bringing him to justice,” Sotloff family spokesman, Barak Barfi, said in a statement.
The daughter of aid worker Haines told ITV News that her family would “feel closure and relief once there’s a bullet between his eyes.”
Cage, a civil rights group that was in contact with Emwazi for several years over his alleged harassment by British security services, said that while not 100 percent certain, it believed it was him.
Cage research director Asim Qureishi described Emwazi as a “beautiful young man” who had been alienated by his treatment at the hands of the British security services.
Cage published correspondence with Emwazi in which he alleged that a British MI5 secret service agent named “Nick” tried to recruit him while interrogating him at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in 2009.
Emwazi said he was returning with two friends after they were expelled from Tanzania, accused of trying to join Muslim militants in Somalia on a trip that he said was a safari holiday after finishing university.
“Why don’t you work for us?” Emwazi quoted “Nick” as telling him. After refusing, he said the officer told him: “You’re going to have a lot of trouble, you’re going to be known, you’re going to be followed.”
After being refused entry to Kuwait three times, Emwazi left his London home in 2013 and four months later police told his family he had entered Syria, Cage said.
The e-mails appear to point to growing radicalization: He finished one in 2010 saying: “May Allah get rid of the oppressors i.e. security agents.”
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