‘Jihadi John’: how Mohammed Emwazi went from quiet soccer fan to ‘cold, sadistic’ Islamic State executioner
Mohammed Enwazi became a high-profile target for the US after carrying out a series of filmed executions
People who knew him quoted by British media said they could not reconcile the quiet but intense young man they knew with the “cold, sadistic and merciless” killer described by one former hostage.
Emwazi, 27, was born in Kuwait but the family moved to London when he was six years old and he grew up in North Kensington, a leafy, middle-class area where a network of Islamist extremists has since been uncovered.
As a child he was a fan of Manchester United football club and the pop band S Club 7, according to a 1996 school year book published by The Sun tabloid.
He went on to study information technology at the University of Westminster, which confirmed that someone by that name left six years ago and said it was “shocked and sickened” by the allegations.