“Jihadi John,” the ISIS savage infamous for beheading innocent captives, was once a “lovely, lovely boy,” a former teacher says.
But the unidentified teacher, who worked at London’s Quintin Kynaston school, admits Mohammed Emwazi did have a slight problem.
“We’d find that he’d get very angry and worked up and it would take him a long time to calm himself down,” she told the BBC. “So we did a lot of work as a school to help him with his anger and to control his emotions.”
The school’s solution: sending the now 27-year-old executioner to anger therapy.
“It seemed to work,’’ the teacher insisted. “He had a lot of respect for all of the work that had been done for him at our school.”
In contrast to the stereotype of an impoverished loner driven to terrorism out of desperation, Emwazi came from the middle-class suburbs of London, loved “The Simpsons” and gadgets, and dreamed of becoming a professional soccer player.
“He went to a university of his choice, and from the way he started in year seven to how he blossomed until he left at the end of sixth form was a huge achievement for him,” the teacher added.
Emwazi was far from devout while attending the high school, located in London’s exclusive St. John’s Wood neighborhood, another former pal told The Sun of London.
“He dressed like a gangsta rapper and was very into music at that time,” a former female pal told the paper. “He was obsessed with Snoop Dogg, Eminem and Tupac Shakur,” and enjoyed vodka and pot.
“I never saw him pray or wear Islamic dress,” she said. “He would not even mention religion at all.”
Emwazi graduated with a degree in computer programming from the University of Westminster, a college that at least one former student accused this week of being a hotbed for radical Muslims.
Emwazi was able to flee Britain although he belonged to a terrorist cell with ties to four attempted bombings in London, Britain’s Guardian newspaper said Saturday.
He was later seen in the gruesome beheading videos of US journalist Steven Sotloff, US aid worker Peter Kassig, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, and two Japanese nationals.
“I just can’t believe he’d do that,” his former teacher said.
The school is “shocked and sickened” by news of its infamous alum, this week’s newsletter said.
Staffers are working with authorities to provide any help they can, the newsletter added. MI5 British Intelligence officers have already interviewed Emwazi’s former teachers, according to recent reports.
British advocacy group Cage, which campaigns against the War on Terror, meanwhile declared this week that MI5’s constant questioning of Emwazi — he’d been on its radar since at least 2009 — turned him into a radical.
Prime Minister David Cameron dismissed the claim as “reprehensible,” adding that the public should support the intelligence agency’s decisions.