How veins on Jihadi John’s hand gave him away

BRITISH spies identified Jihadi John ‘within hours’ of his first beheading video by examining the veins on his knife-wielding hand, it was revealed yesterday.

In the footage that caused shockwaves around the world, the Islamic State executioner was masked and had disguised his London accent.

But he had a distinctive posture and voice, which made identifying him as Mohammed Emwazi ‘quite easy’, the Sunday Times reported.

Emwazi, a University of Westminster graduate from north-west London, had been under surveillance by police and the security services for three years before he fled to Syria in 2012.

British intelligence analysts compared recordings of his voice from wire taps to the voice used in the video – posted online on August 19, 2014 – and quickly established it was him.

They also compared the pattern of the veins on his left hand with surveillance pictures.

Robert Hannigan, former director of GCHQ, said: ‘His size, his hands, but, above all, his voice, made identifying him quite easy.’ Emwazi was killed by a US drone in November 2015.