History
UK man behind Isis beheadings identified as Mohammed Emwazi
A British man has been identified as the knife-wielding militant who appears in Islamic State videos claiming responsibility for the beheadings of US, British and other hostages.
The Guardian has confirmed that Mohammed Emwazi, a 26-year-old west Londoner and university graduate, is the militant. He had been given the moniker “Jihadi John” by a group of his hostages, who described him as part of an Isis cell they named “the Beatles”.
The name was first published by the Washington Post on Thursday morning. Strenuous efforts appear to have been made to cover his tracks on the internet.
Emwazi guarded western hostages and handled negotiations with their families. By all accounts he is a ruthless killer who has shown little compunction about his gory, on-screen murders.
Emwazi arrived in Britain as a young boy, aged six, after being born in Kuwait. He grew up in west London and was known as a polite, mild-mannered young man.
Those who knew him say he had a penchant for wearing stylish clothes but remained an observant Muslim. The Post describes him as bearded and careful not to make eye contact with women.
He graduated in 2009 in information technology and is also fluent in Arabic. However, instead of building a computing career, Emwazi ended up on MI5’s radar.
Over the course of a year he claimed to have been harassed and intimidated by the security services. In 2010, he went as far as to file a complaint with the Independent Police Complaints Commission over his treatment.
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