The terrorist who secured infamy as the Islamic State executioner Mohammed Emwazi – aka “Jihadi John” – bore little resemblance to the man I met in 2010. In the three months I came to know Emwazi he was polite and considerate. He insisted on paying for my coffee and sympathised when I complained about heavy workloads.
Emwazi befriended me because he hoped I would tell his story. He shared with me his complaints of harassment and his paranoia about surveillance from the security services. But tellingly, he also carefully hid from me his growing interest in jihadi extremism and his hatred of the west’s foreign policies in the Middle East.
In 2010 Emwazi was almost certainly on an extremist path. Some of his friends from his network of London-based Islamists had already seen action with al-Shabaab in Somalia. Yet I’m sure that Emwazi’s capacity for evil was not brought about either by his contact with this network or through his frequent encounters with the British security services. It is what happened to him in Syria two years later that loosened the restraints of humanity he was still bound by when I met him. Emwazi must ultimately take responsibility for his crimes, and I don’t agree with those who say MI5 or any other agency made him the terrorist he became.
In 2010 the focus of his anger was directed towards MI5, which he blamed for wrecking relationships with two of his girlfriends – one in Kuwait and one in London. In each case he had been engaged to be married, until the security services made the families aware of Emwazi’s extremist links. It was enough for the families to pull their daughters back from the brink.
At this point, to those who didn’t know of his associations, Emwazi hardly seemed unusual among young Muslims who had grievances towards the state. In 2009 and 2010 I met 12 Muslim men who all complained about harassment from MI5 while at the same expressing anger at Britain’s war on terror. Half of them went on to join terrorist organisations, while the other half outgrew their hostility and have gone on to quietly resume peaceful lives in Britain. Emwazi, however, went on to commit a series of atrocities that Islamic State put centre stage in a grisly online propaganda campaign in the summer of 2014.
Lots of young men and women hold radical or extremist ideas. How can we prevent extremists turning into people who feel comfortable justifying terrorism, or joining groups who put atrocities at the heart of their ideology?
The reason so many young, desperate Muslim men came to me seeking publicity is there is no credible grievance process that can be seen to hold the security services to account. These men were demonstrably not suitable for the government’s Prevent programme as they had already rebuffed approaches from security services and were, by the time I met them, overtly hostile to the state. A number of them were on the outer spectrum of extremism when plain-clothes police knocked on their doors in the middle of night. But they claimed their experience of the intelligence services had hardened their attitudes, creating a sense of victimisation that pushed them further into extremist ideology.
By using the investigatory powers tribunal, members of the public can bring complaints against the security services, including MI5. But in its 15-year history it has only once ruled against the security and intelligence services – and that was a complaint brought in the wake of the disclosures made by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden.
It is a cumbersome and lengthy procedure that does not have the confidence of Muslims who are targeted by the security services. They don’t believe the tribunal is capable of finding MI5’s treatment of individuals to be at fault. And once the security services have intervened in someone’s life it is difficult to repair the damage. Local police are left to answer complaints about harassment while SO15, the Met’s counter-terrorism unit, or MI5 are under no obligation to explain their actions.
Of course, there is no such thing as a perfect counter-terrorism policy, and I accept that it is inevitable that some innocent feathers will have to be ruffled while Britain faces such a grave terrorist threat. So I propose the creation of a “surveillance ombudsman” – directly appointed by the prime minister – who can command the trust of both the security services and the Muslim community, to help settle grievances.
The post should have the power to informally investigate complaints raised by anyone who feels they have been subjected to a prolonged surveillance operation. I don’t see any need for this work to be done in public. But it would be a credible forum for grievances. The ombudsman should not be without teeth, and able to correct mistakes or issue warning notices. Not only would such a system help people to understand why they have been targeted, but where mistakes have been made the damage could at least be mitigated.
If a raw grievance over any perceived mistreatment can play a part in radicalisation, this could provide a vital opportunity to break the chain. It would be a two-way process, so the security services would be able to use it to issue informal warnings about extremist behaviour or suspicious patterns of behaviour. We will never know if Emwazi would have benefited from such a process. But if we hope to stop the next British extremist seeking common cause with Isis, we must consider such measures.
• Robert Verkaik is the author of Jihadi John: The Making of a Terrorist, published by Oneworld on 28 January
