London: The father of Mohammad Emwazi told a colleague that his son was a “dog, an animal and a terrorist” and disclosed that the man known as Jihadi John had begged his parents for forgiveness before joining Daesh, The Daily Telegraph reports.
Instead of forgiving him, Jassem Emwazi, 51, told his son that he hoped he would be killed after he said he was going to Syria “for jihad” in 2013.
Emwazi gave his views on his son in an emotional phone call to Abu Meshaal to explain his absence from his job as a storekeeper in a Cooperative supermarket depot in Kuwait. Meshaal, 40, said Emwazi was in tears during Monday’s conversation, in which he described the identification of his son as Daesh’s hooded executioner as a “catastrophe” for his family.
“He was very emotional and crying the whole time,” said Meshaal. “He said, ‘My son is a dog, he is an animal, a terrorist. He said he had talked to him a lot trying to persuade him to return to his personal life but that the son didn’t listen to him. He said, ‘To hell with my son.’”
Emwazi told the colleague that he had emphatically rejected his eldest son during a phone call in 2013 from Turkey when he had asked his parents’ blessing for a trip to Syria to fight as a jihadist.
“Mohammad called his father and said, ‘I’m going to Syria to fight jihad, please release me and forgive me for everything,’?” Meshaal said. “Jassem said, ‘— you. I hope you die before you arrive in Syria.’”
Emwazi, who was interrogated by Kuwaiti investigators on Sunday, said he felt so ashamed of his son that he did not want to leave his house in Al Oyoun.
“He said he cannot come back to work because he felt so shy of other people,” said Meshaal. “He is sitting home and cannot even go to the mosque to pray because he is ashamed of his son.” Meshaal’s account echoed comments made by another unnamed colleague to Kuwait’s Qabbas newspaper, in which Emwazi was reported to have previously expressed concern about his son. “All I know is that he was talking about his son whose behaviour he was not able to control,” the anonymous colleague said. “He was so tired and kept on repeating that ‘my son is not a good son’.”
