Cameron defends British spies in ‘Jihadi John’ case
28 Feb 2015 11:33 PM GMT
“When there are people anywhere in the world who commit appalling and heinous crimes against British citizens, we will do everything we can, with the police, with the security services, with all that we have at our disposal, to find these people and put them out of action. That is the number one priority for me,” he said.
Cameron remarks was aimed at defending the MI5 spies after reports emerged that Kuwait-born Mohammed Emwazi, known as “Jihadi John”, was known to them for years but failed to prevent him joining Islamic State.
UK-based advocacy group Cage has suggested that MI5 may have contributed to the radicalisation of Emwazi.
“I meet with them (MI5) regularly, I ask them searching questions about what they do and in my almost five years’ experience as prime minister, I think they are incredibly impressive, hard-working, dedicated, courageous and effective at protecting our country,” he said.
“All of the time, they are having to make incredibly difficult judgements and I think basically they make very good judgements on our behalf, and I think whilst we are in the middle of this vast effort to make sure British citizens are safe, the most important thing is to get behind them.”
Cameron went on to say the security services’ “dedication and work has saved us from plots on the streets of the UK that could have done us immense damage” within the last few months.
Emwazi was unmasked yesterday as the notorious killer involved in the murders of at least six hostages in Syria who was known to MI5 for several years.
He was deported from Tanzania in 2009 amid fears he was travelling to join the terror group al Shabab, and MI5 tried unsuccessfully to recruit him as an informer.
The extremist, who was brought up in west London, was subject to a no fly order and was on a terror watch list but still managed to leave without detection.
He was a “person of interest” to MI5 as a member of a cell known as The London Boys, which was set up in 2007 to recruit and raise funds for Somalia-based terror group al Shabab.
Jihadi John rose to notoriety in a video posted online last August, in which he appeared to kill the US
journalist James Foley.
Dressed all in black, he reappeared in videos of the beheadings of US reporter Steven Sotloff, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, and US aid worker Peter Kassig.
Families in the UK have given mixed reactions to the militant being named, with the mother of Foley saying she forgave Emwazi while Haines’s daughter, Bethany, said she wanted to see “a bullet between his eyes”.
Emwazi is 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.
Jihadi John should be caught alive: Widow
The widow of a man killed by a masked Islamic State (IS) militant known as ‘Jihadi John’ has said that she wants him caught alive, a media report said on Friday.
Dragana Haines says the “last thing” she wants for the man who killed her husband, British aid worker David Haines, is an “honourable death”, BBC reported. “That’s the only moral satisfaction for the families of all the people that he murdered, because if he gets killed in the action, to put it that way, it will be an honourable death for him and that is the last thing I would actually want for someone like him. “I think he needs to be put to justice, but not in that way.”
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.
Cameron remarks was aimed at defending the MI5 spies after reports emerged that Kuwait-born Mohammed Emwazi, known as “Jihadi John”, was known to them for years but failed to prevent him joining Islamic State.
UK-based advocacy group Cage has suggested that MI5 may have contributed to the radicalisation of Emwazi.
“I meet with them (MI5) regularly, I ask them searching questions about what they do and in my almost five years’ experience as prime minister, I think they are incredibly impressive, hard-working, dedicated, courageous and effective at protecting our country,” he said.
“All of the time, they are having to make incredibly difficult judgements and I think basically they make very good judgements on our behalf, and I think whilst we are in the middle of this vast effort to make sure British citizens are safe, the most important thing is to get behind them.”
Cameron went on to say the security services’ “dedication and work has saved us from plots on the streets of the UK that could have done us immense damage” within the last few months.
Emwazi was unmasked yesterday as the notorious killer involved in the murders of at least six hostages in Syria who was known to MI5 for several years.
He was deported from Tanzania in 2009 amid fears he was travelling to join the terror group al Shabab, and MI5 tried unsuccessfully to recruit him as an informer.
The extremist, who was brought up in west London, was subject to a no fly order and was on a terror watch list but still managed to leave without detection.
He was a “person of interest” to MI5 as a member of a cell known as The London Boys, which was set up in 2007 to recruit and raise funds for Somalia-based terror group al Shabab.
Jihadi John rose to notoriety in a video posted online last August, in which he appeared to kill the US
journalist James Foley.
Dressed all in black, he reappeared in videos of the beheadings of US reporter Steven Sotloff, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, and US aid worker Peter Kassig.
Families in the UK have given mixed reactions to the militant being named, with the mother of Foley saying she forgave Emwazi while Haines’s daughter, Bethany, said she wanted to see “a bullet between his eyes”.
Emwazi is 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.
Jihadi John should be caught alive: Widow
The widow of a man killed by a masked Islamic State (IS) militant known as ‘Jihadi John’ has said that she wants him caught alive, a media report said on Friday.
Dragana Haines says the “last thing” she wants for the man who killed her husband, British aid worker David Haines, is an “honourable death”, BBC reported. “That’s the only moral satisfaction for the families of all the people that he murdered, because if he gets killed in the action, to put it that way, it will be an honourable death for him and that is the last thing I would actually want for someone like him. “I think he needs to be put to justice, but not in that way.”
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.
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