‘Jihadi John’ contemplated suicide in 2010

Mohammed Emwazi, the London man believed to be Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) executioner “Jihadi John” told a journalist four years ago that surveillance by British security services had left him contemplating suicide. Emwazi told the online site Mail on Sunday he felt like a “dead man walking”. Cage, a British civil rights group that was in contact with Emwazi, claims that domestic spy agency MI5 had been tracking him since at least 2009, and blamed his radicalization on their “harassment”. Prime Minister David Cameron and a former MI6 leader strongly rejected the idea, while London mayor Boris Johnson accused Cage of an “apology for terror”. Emwazi was born in Kuwait but moved to London when he was a child and attended school and university there. The Daily Telegraph reported this weekend that he went to high school with two other boys who went onto become militants – Choukri Ellekhlifi, who was killed fighting in Syria, and Mohammed Sakr, killed fighting in Somalia.

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