Islamic State murderer ‘Jihadi John’ has apparently been outed as Mohammed Emwazi, a British man from West London.
The Washington Post reports that Emwazi was born in Kuwait, came from a well-off middle class family and was a graduate of the University of Westminster with a degree in computer programming.
The BBC reports that Emwazi was known to British security services, who chose not to disclose his name earlier for “operational reasons”.
The IS fighter, who has appeared with his face in a balaclava, has appeared in numerous videos where captive journalists and aid workers have been brutally beheaded. His victims include the US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, British aid workers Alan Henning and David Haines, and US aid worker Peter Kassig.
Scotland Yard has refused to confirm the reports. Commander Richard Walton, head of the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, said: “We have previously asked media outlets not to speculate about the details of our investigation on the basis that life is at risk.
“We are not going to confirm the identity of anyone at this stage or give an update on the progress of this live counter-terrorism investigation.”
The Washington Post reported that Emwazi had travelled to Syria as early as 2012, and joined Islamic State some months later.
Foley, the first of the hostages to be murdered, was killed in August last year, and security services claimed they had identified him within a month, but withheld his name. Britain’s ambasador to the US, Sir Peter Westmacott, told Meet The Press in late August that “sophisticated” voice recognition equipment was being used to identify the killer.
There is little to no trace of Emwazi on any social media, on Facebook or Twitter, unlike many of his Islamic State compatriots who are renowned for using the web as a recruitment and propaganda tool.
The only traces of him online are reports of a safari he undertook in 2009 to Tanzania, where he and friends were detained in Dar es Salaam by police, and eventually deported. Arriving in Amsterdam en route home, Emwazi claimed he was interrogated by MI5. He first made the claims in emails to Asim Qureshi, research director at the Islamic prisoner rights group, CAGE, published by WaPo. CAGE is the organisation set up by former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg.
