Murder Victim's Widow Wants 'Jihadi John' Captured Alive

The widow of a British man murdered by ISIS says she wants the terrorist who beheaded him captured alive and "put to justice," the Guardian reported Friday.

Dragana Haines — whose husband David was the first Briton to be killed onscreen by ISIS in a propaganda video released in September — said she did not want to see the killer die in what he would consider to be an "honorable" death on the battlefield.

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The Haines' daughter Bethany took a different position, saying that victims' families would only "feel closure and relief once there's a bullet between his eyes."

Haines family members spoke after Mohammed Emwazi, a 26- or 27-year-old computer studies graduate, was identified as "Jihadi John," the terrorist shown in numerous videotaped beheadings of Western hostages.

Emwazi, 26, a Kuwait-born Briton, had lived in London. Security services had reportedly been tracking his activities from 2009, when he was denied entry to Tanzania, until 2013 when his family was informed that he had entered Syria.

British and U.S. counterterrorism officials are believed to have discovered the identity of "Jihadi John" as far back as September, the BBC reported.

Britain's MI5, the FBI and other intelligence agencies used interviews with former hostages, voice recognition software and on-the-ground research in London to develop a profile of the terrorist now identified as Emwazi.

The MI5 even tried to recruit Emwazi as an informer years before he entered Syria, where he eventually joined ISIS.

Despite the failure in the Emwazi case, intelligence agencies are expected to continue trying to approach and recruit jihadist sympathizers to work for them.

U.S. and British intelligence are widely believed to have informants inside the ISIS "capital" of Raqqa, Syria.

But their inability to prevent Emwazi from becoming one of the world's most prominent and menacing terrorist figures illustrates the difficulty of penetrating shadowy and secretive jihadist terror networks.

On Thursday, Asim Qureshi, the research director of the London-based lobby group known as Cage — which had been in contact with Emwazi for a number of years — said he had encountered numerous problems with British and other security services.

Qureshi said Emwazi had been "extremely kind, gentle and soft-spoken, the most humble young person I knew."

But Emwazi complained that he had been "harassed" by security services, with later emails suggesting he was "witnessing perceived injustices everywhere," Qureshi said.

Cage, formerly known as "Cageprisoners," is an advocacy group set up by former Guantanamo Bay prisoner Moazzam Begg that is sharply critical of Western efforts to capture and kill jihadists.

A lengthy report on Emwazi's case posted on Cage's website portrays him in large part as a victim of overzealous, bullying police action facilitated by unreasonably harsh British anti-terror laws.

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