Smiling at the camera with his church school friends (left), there is nothing to link this middle-class schoolboy to the merciless terrorist butcher Jihadi John. But Mohammad Emwazi can tonight be unmasked as the notorious Islamic State murderer who has shocked the world with his bloodlust. Arriving in Britain when he was six years old, Kuwaiti-born Mohammed Emwazi appeared to embrace British life, playing football in the affluent streets of West London while supporting Manchester United. Neighbours recalled a polite, quietly spoken boy who was studious at his Church of England school, where he was the only Muslim pupil in his class.
The son of a Kuwaiti minicab driver, young Emwazi arrived in Britain speaking only a few words of English, and appeared more interested in football than in Islam. He went to mosque with his family, who spoke Arabic to each other, but wore Western clothing and became popular with his British classmates at St Mary Magdalene Church of England primary school in Maida Vale, West London. Former schoolmates were yesterday struggling to believe that the quiet boy they knew had been unmasked as the world’s most notorious terrorist.
