Widow wants 'Jihadi John' alive

The widow of a man killed by a masked Islamic State militant known as "Jihadi John" says she wants him caught alive.

Dragana Haines says the "last thing" she wants for the man who killed her husband, British aid worker David Haines, is an "honourable death".

The militant, pictured in the videos of the beheadings of Western hostages, has been named as Mohammed Emwazi, a Kuwaiti-born Briton from west London.

Mr Haines' daughter said she wanted to see "a bullet between his eyes".

Emwazi, who is in his mid-20s and was previously known to British security services, first appeared in a video last August, when he apparently killed the US journalist James Foley.

He was later thought to have been pictured in the videos of the beheadings of Mr Haines, US journalist Steven Sotloff, British taxi driver Alan Henning, and American aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig, also known as Peter.

Mrs Haines told the BBC she wanted him to be caught alive and not have an "honourable death" by being killed in action.

She added: "I think he needs to be put to justice, but not in that way."

However Mr Haines' daughter, Bethany, told ITV News: "I think all the families will feel closure and relief once there's a bullet between his eyes."

A spokesman for the family of Steven Sotloff said: "We want to sit in a courtroom, watch him sentenced and see him sent to a super-max prison."

Mr Foley's mother Diane told the Times that she forgave her son's killer.

"It saddens me, [Emwazi's] continued hatred," she said. "He felt wronged, now we hate him - now that just prolongs the hatred. We need to end it.

"As a mum I forgive him. You know, the whole thing is tragic - an ongoing tragedy."

'The Beatles'
 
In each of the videos, the militant appeared dressed in a black robe with a black balaclava covering all but his eyes and top of his nose.

Speaking with a British accent, he taunted Western powers before holding his knife to the hostages' necks, appearing to start cutting before the film stopped. The victims' decapitated bodies were then shown.

Earlier this month, the militant featured in a video in which the Japanese journalist Kenji Goto appeared to be beheaded.

Hostages released by IS said he was one of three British jihadists guarding Westerners abducted by the group in Syria. They were known collectively as "the Beatles".

In a news conference, Asim Qureshi, the research director of the London-based lobby group Cage, which had been in contact with Emwazi over a number of years, detailed the difficulties Emwazi had faced with security services in the UK and overseas.

Mr Qureshi said Emwazi, who is understood to be about 27, had been "extremely kind, gentle and soft-spoken, the most humble young person I knew".

He added that Emwazi travelled to Tanzania in May 2009 following his graduation in computer programming at the University of Westminster.

Mr Qureshi said he and two friends had planned to go on a safari but once they landed in Dar es Salaam they were detained by police and held overnight.

Emwazi told Cage he was subsequently "harassed" by security services and later told the charity he was "witnessing perceived injustices everywhere".

But Rafaello Pantucci, author of We Love Life As You Love Death, said the suggestion the security services may have driven Emwazi to carry out his killings was "disproportionate".

He said: "Security services asking questions and making your life a little bit difficult and ending up murdering people in this very cold-blooded way seems a very disproportionate causal link."

Emwazi then ended up flying to Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, where he claimed to be met by British intelligence agents from MI5 who accused him of trying to travel to Somalia, where the jihadist group al-Shabab operates. He denied the accusation and said the agents had tried to recruit him before allowing him to return to the UK.

In early 2013, at his father's suggestion, Emwazi changed his name by deed poll to Mohammed al-Ayan, Cage said.

Emwazi was believed to have travelled to Syria around 2013 and later joined IS, which has declared the creation of a "caliphate" in the large swathes of Syria and neighbouring Iraq it controls.

A spokeswoman for Prime Minister David Cameron would not confirm or deny the latest reports, adding that the police and security services were working hard to find those responsible for the murder of the British hostages.

British police have not commented on his identity, citing ongoing inquiries.

Credit: The BBC