£5,000 a day to guard Jihadi John relatives
JIHADI John’s family are being guarded by armed police at a secret location in a security operation costing taxpayers more than £5,000 a day.
Officers from Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism command provide round-the- clock protection for the Islamic State killer’s mother, brother and three of his sisters.
The family, who have milked the benefits system for 20 years, went into hiding when their son was identified as Mohammed Emwazi.
They initially left their £600,000 London flat, where their rent was paid by Westminster Council, and moved into a property nearby.
But when Emwazi’s brother, Omar, 21, was spotted by a television crew the family were moved to a hotel where they are living under assumed names.
They have been receiving an estimated £40,000 a year in benefits since they sought asylum in Britain in 1993. The family fled Kuwait after the first Gulf War, claiming persecution as they were seen to favour the Iraqi invasion in 1990.
But after they were made British citizens Emwazi’s father Jasem, 51, returned to Kuwait – the country he claimed he fled fearing for his life. His daughter Asma, 25, is also there.
Meanwhile Emwazi’s mother Ghaneya, brother and three of his sisters continue to drain the public purse of thousands more in protection costs. None are suspected of wrongdoing but police are thought to be questioning them about their contact with Emwazi since he moved to Syria.
Tory MP Philip Davies said the public will be angry that the family are receiving such expensive protection, but added that the police are in an ‘impossible position’.
Scotland Yard refused to comment on the family’s whereabouts or security arrangements.
Friends of the family said Emwazi’s father moved close relatives into a safe house in Kuwait after his son’s identity was revealed. Last night a former friend of the terrorist said he once kidnapped two boys at gunpoint in retaliation for a gang attack on his brother. Emwazi forced the teenagers into a car and ordered them to strip to their underwear before dumping them on the M1 motorway.
The kidnapping was said to be retribution for a vicious attack the previous day when Emwazi and his younger brother Omar were attacked with bricks.
It occurred in 2008 when Emwazi was studying at the University of Westminster – a year before he was quizzed by the security services on suspicion of trying to reach militant training camps in Somalia.
The friend, who was 14 at the time, said the attack was sparked by gang rivalries involving two West London estates.
‘There was a big fight [one day],’ he said. ‘[Gang members] threw a brick at my head and broke my arm. Omar was punched in the face a few times and beaten up.
‘The next day Mohammed turned up with two religious guys with beards. They drove round in a car and found these two guys who attacked us, threatened them with a gun, made them take all their clothes off and drove off. They dumped them on the M1.’
Last night the first video of Emwazi as a boy emerged. It shows him as a 15-year-old being picked to play football in the playground of his North London school. One boy can be heard shouting ‘Emwazi’ in the footage aired by Channel 4 News.