The Government has admitted that hundreds of extremists are not being properly monitored amid growing pressure to bring back strict control orders scrapped when the Coalition came to power in 2010. Court papers link Emwazi to a number of terror suspects still operating in west London but it is understood that not one of them is currently under any kind of restriction, despite their close association to “Jihadi John”.
In a series of further developments following the disclosure of Jihadi John’s identity, it can also be revealed that:
• A second boy from Quintin Kynaston academy, the northwest London school that Emwazi attended, died fighting with terrorists abroad. Choukri Ellekhlifi was killed fighting for an al-Qaeda-affiliated terror group in Syria in 2013
• The academy was last night facing a government inquiry
• Emwazi was recruited by two of the world’s most notorious terrorists while on a holiday in Kuwait when he was just 19.
The Government’s inability to deport J1, who was born in Ethiopia, will bolster demands for the Human Rights Act to be scrapped.
The Government’s case against him finally collapsed in the summer after a five-year legal battle when the senior diplomat in charge of trying to deport terrorists conceded that the system was not working.
The court documents involving J1 and another terror suspect, known as CE, a father of two who was born in Iran, detail a large network of jihadists operating in west London in 2011. CE cannot be deported either, having been given British citizenship in 2004.
Emwazi, 26, who would go on to become the world’s most wanted man after the execution of Western hostages in Syria, was four years ago a member of a cell that, according to the authorities, comprised at least 10 other jihadists that security services were keeping under surveillance.
J1 is accused by the Government of being a senior organiser for al-Shabaab. Court papers disclose that “on the morning of the failed London bombings of 21 July 2005, a mobile telephone which the appellant [J1] now accepts was used by him, was in contact with a telephone used by one of the bombers, Hussein Osman”.
J1 is also described in court papers, in which the Government argued he constituted a threat to the UK and should be deported, as an associate of Londoners Mohammed Sakr and Bilal Berjawi, both of whom died in US drone strikes in Somalia. Sakr and Emwazi were friends and Sakr also attended Quintin Kynaston academy.
The Home Office ordered J1’s deportation as a threat to national security as long ago as 2010 but his lawyers argued that his human rights would be breached if he were sent back to Ethiopia, where he could face detention and possible torture.
After a five-year court battle, the deportation case against J1 collapsed when Anthony Layden, the British diplomat in charge of negotiating his deportation, admitted the Continued from Page 1
system was not working. It is understood he blamed the Home Office for the failure. Mr Layden’s resignation as Special Representative for Deportation with Assurances was reported in last week’s Telegraph.
The failure to deport J1 echoes another case, also highlighted by this newspaper, of Baghdad Meziane, a convicted al-Qaeda fundraiser, who has successfully resisted deportation to Algeria on human rights grounds since 2009.
Meziane was a known associate of a senior al-Qaeda operative who had mentored the terrorists behind the attacks in Paris at the start of the year, in which 17 people died. The Henry Jackson Society, a security and intelligence think tank, estimates that at least 25 foreign-born terrorists have used the human rights argument to prevent their deportation.
Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said the failure to deport J1 was compounded by the scrapping of control orders that could have kept him and other members of Emwazi’s network under scrutiny. It is not thought J1, despite his ties to Emwazi, is currently under any restriction.
Ms Cooper said yesterday: “The Government have serious questions to answer about their handling of J1’s case and why Theresa May [the Home Secretary] hasn’t put him under special controls to protect the public. This appears to be yet another case which exposes the extremely serious consequences of the Government’s decision to abolish control orders and weaken counterterror powers four years ago.”
Control orders were replaced in 2011 by TPIMs — Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures — which allow the authorities to impose a curfew and limit communications and which have a two-year time limit. The Telegraph reported last year that all the TPIMs put in place in 2011 had expired.
Ms Cooper added: “This man (J1) has been linked to planned terror attacks, associated with known terrorists, and identified as a risk to the UK. So why didn’t Theresa May at least put him on a TPIM in 2013 when he was released from immigration detention?
“And what is being done now? Are they reconsidering TPIMs, deportation assurances or prosecution options? Or do they no longer believe he is a significant threat?”
The connections between J1 and Emwazi are contained in court papers dating back to 2011 which also concern CE and the further restrictions the Government wanted to place on him.
At the time, Emwazi had come to the attention of MI5 after making an abortive attempt to join al-Shabaab in Somalia. Emwazi had insisted he had flown to Tanzania to go on a safari after university but intelligence agencies are certain he planned to go to a terror training camp. Emwazi eventually fled to Syria in the late spring of 2013, joining Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (Isil) and going on to become a barbaric killer who beheaded two British and three American hostages in executions filmed and released on the internet.
Court papers lodged in 2011 by the Home Office disclose how CE, a close friend of J1, had admitted that Emwazi “often came round to the flat” where he was living in west London.
The security services accused CE of attending a terror training camp run by al-Shabaab in Somalia in 2006 to 2007 before returning to the UK.
CE was involved in a network that included Emwazi, J1 and at least eight other jihadists including Bilal Berjawi.
The papers state that CE “has regularly attended covert meetings with members of the network”.
A spokesman for the Home Office said yesterday: “Control orders were not working and were being struck down by the courts.
“TPIMs have been endorsed by the courts, counter-terrorism reviewers, the police, and the Security Service. Following a review of the powers available to manage the terrorist threat, the range of measures available under the TPIM Act is being extended, including a measure to allow TPIM subjects to be relocated to different parts of the country.”
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