Cage UK, founded by a man once held at Guantanamo Bay, says it was in touch with the ISIS fighter between 2009 and 2012 after he complained of harassment from the British authorities.
On Thursday, Mohammed Emwazi, a 26-year-old from northwest London, was identified as “Jihadi John,” an ISIS militant who has become the masked face of the group's gruesome beheading videos.
Carl Court / Getty / ISIS video screenshot
Cage UK, an activist group campaigning against the ill-treatment of Muslims due to anti-terror laws, soon emerged as one of the key sources in identifying Emwazi, and blamed British security agencies' harrassment for his radicalization.
Cage was set up more than a decade ago by Moazzam Begg, a British citizen who was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 and then detained in Guantanamo Bay on suspicion of being an enemy combatant. He was held for almost three years before being released without charge. He was arrested again in the U.K. on seven terrorism-related charges in Feb. 2014, in connection with a trip to Syria, although the charges were dropped in October.
Cage says it was in touch with Emwazi between 2009 and 2012, and published a lengthy article about its interactions with him on its website on Thursday.
Cage says Emwazi approached the group in 2009 after being detained and interrogated by British security services during a trip to Tanzania. It said that this "harassment and abuse" continued, and was largely responsible for his radicalization.
Asim Qureshi, the group's research director, told the Washington Post, which broke the story on Thursday, that he was "fairly certain" that Emwazi and "Jihadi John" are one and the same person. He added in a press conference later on Thursday that he could not be 100% sure.
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