The widow of a British aid worker beheaded by Islamic State has said she wants the Londoner believed to have been responsible caught alive and “put to justice”.



Speaking after Mohammed Emwazi, a 26-year-old computer studies graduate, was identified on Thursday as the militant known as “Jihadi John”, Dragana Haines said the last thing she wanted was for him to be given what he would consider an honourable death by being killed in action.

David Haines, 44, was the first Briton to be killed on-screen by Isis in a propaganda video released last September.

Emwazi appeared in the video hooded and dressed all in black, and has appeared in other films purporting to show the killing of a series of captives, including American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, British aid worker Alan Henning and US aid worker Peter Kassig.

Dragana Haines told the BBC: “Hopefully he will be caught alive. That’s the only moral satisfaction for the families of all the people he murdered because if he gets killed in action that will be an honourable death for him and that is the last thing I would want for someone like him.”

However, Haines’s daughter Bethany told ITV News: “It’s a good step, but I think all the families will feel closure and relief once there’s a bullet between his eyes.”

Dragana Haines spoke of the anguish of learning the true identity of her husband’s killer, describing it as living through a “flashback to the very day we found out that David had been killed”.

“It was basically living through that day again,” she said. “I can only hope that he will be caught. Ever since I found out that David had been murdered I have been hoping that this man will be identified and eventually caught but it’s difficult to be reminded of it all again.”

Dragana said she had just started “picking up the pieces and living as much of a normal life as possible” when confronted with the news that her husband’s killer had been identified.

Sotloff’s family said they felt relieved and took some comfort when Emwazi’s identity was revealed. “We want to sit in a courtroom, watch him sentenced and see him sent to a super-max prison where he will spend the rest of his life in isolation,” they added.

It emerged on Thursday that Emwazi had been known to intelligence agencies for five years before he publicly emerged in a series of Isis propaganda videos.

Emails and other documents that emerged also showed that security services had been tracking Emwazi since 2009, starting when he was refused entry to Tanzania, until the middle of 2013 when they informed his family that he had crossed over to Syria.

During that period, Emwazi complained on occasion that he had been harassed byMI5, but the Kuwaiti-born Briton eventually disappeared before arriving on the world stage as the murderous public face of Isis in August 2014.