Smiling sweetly for the camera alongside his classmates this is the football obsessed schoolboy who would become the masked militant behind the filmed Islamic State beheadings.
The 11 year old Mohammed Emwazi posing for a class photo bears no resemblance to the black clad fighter who barked demands at western governments in Isis s grisly videos.
Taken 17 years ago at St Mary Magdalene Church of England primary school in Maida Vale west London the picture shows Emwazi who later became infamous as Jihadi John at his most innocent.
Mohammed Emwazi aged 11 with classmates in west London. Photograph Jonathan Hartley AssociatesThe true identity of the Isis killer has been known for several months to security officials on both sides of the Atlantic and across much of the Middle East.
But there was no question of any indiscreet inquiries into his whereabouts being conducted as long as hostages lives remained at risk. As a consequence his family in London was not questioned and his known associates were left unmolested.
After the killer was named in the US as Mohammed Emwazi on Thursday details of his life and his descent into terrorism and murder began to emerge.
Emwazi s family moved from Kuwait to London 20 years ago when he was aged six. The family settled in North Kensington in the west of the capital. It is an area that has produced a number of violent jihadis.
Mohammed Emwazi at St Mary Magdalene C of E Primary School in 1996 Photograph Darren Fletcher Photography LtdHe was educated at Quintin Kynaston school in St John s Wood north London where his contemporaries included the singer songwriter Tulisa. He then studied information technology at the University of Westminster graduating in 2009.
By this time Emwazi was said to be a polite observant Muslim with a penchant for designer clothes. He was also a member of a loose knit group of Muslim youths who played five a side football together were educated at the same schools attended the same mosques and were all impressed by a particular preacher Hani al Sibai.
Of that group three are now dead one is living in Sudan after being stripped of his British citizenship a fourth cannot leave the UK for fear that he too will be deprived of his citizenship and several are serving prison sentences.
According to people who have moved in jihadi circles in west London Emwazi began to be noticed by like minded people about five or six years ago. That s when he emerged so to speak said one.
He was associating with a number of people who were being scrutinised closely by MI5 and Scotland Yard. Some had been discovered to have been in telephone contact with Hussain Osman one of the men who attempted to detonate a series of bombs on London s transport network two weeks after the 7 July 2005 attacks. Several were also found to have taken part in jihadi bonding sessions on mountain camps in northern England and Scotland.
About five years ago one man began to emerge as the leader of the would be jihadis in this corner of west London. He was Bilal el Berjawi who had grown up in North Kensington after his family moved to the UK from Lebanon when he was an infant. In 2011 Berjawi was stripped of his British citizenship after he went to Somalia to join the Islamist group al Shabaab apparently gaining a senior position within its ranks.
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In January 2012 Berjawi was killed in a US drone strike in Somalia. A few hours earlier his wife had given birth to a child at St Mary s hospital in west London prompting suspicions among his associates that his location had been pinpointed as a result of a telephone conversation between the couple.
The following month Mohamed Sakr who had been Berjawi s next door neighbour when they were growing up in London was also killed in a drone strike in Somalia. Although born in Britain Sakr s parents were Egyptian and the UK authorities regarded him as a dual national. Like Berjawi he had been stripped of his British citizenship shortly before the US drone strike. His parents promptly flew to Cairo and formally renounced their Egyptian citizenship to prevent their two other sons from being deprived of their British status.
In 2009 Emwazi embarked on a trip to Tanzania. He has since told friends that it was a safari trip but MI5 and the Tanzanian authorities were clearly not convinced. Emwazi was refused entry to the country and in a series of statements that he subsequently made to Cage a London based NGO that campaigns on behalf of communities affected by the war on terror he alleged he was threatened with beatings by armed members of Tanzania s security forces who suggested to him that they were acting on behalf of the British government.
After being refused entry to Tanzania he was put on a plane to the Netherlands where he said he was questioned by an MI5 agent named Nick who accused him of wanting to take up arms with al Shabaab.
In a series of emails to Cage Emwazi said the British officer knew everything about me where I lived what I did and the people I hanged around with . It is claimed that the MI5 officer then attempted to turn Emwazi asking Why don t you work for us . When he refused MI5 is alleged to have said that life would be harder as a consequence.
In the event Emwazi was put on to a ferry to Dover where he was further questioned by police who told him they had contacted his fiancee in Kuwait. She later broke off their engagement.
Emwazi complained to his friends that the police had told him that they were listening to his telephone calls.
Despite this surveillance local police in west London suspect that he engaged in a series of petty crimes. In 2010 he was charged with possession of a number of stolen expensive bicycles. One of the charges alleged that he acquired criminal property namely a Cannondale Bad Boy bicycle . In the event he elected for trial at crown court and was acquitted.
Emwazi moved to Kuwait where he found work with a computer company but after one return trip to London he was detained and questioned by police as he tried to return to the Middle East. He has alleged also that he was assaulted by one officer. The following day he was refused permission to board a flight to Kuwait and informed that his visa had been cancelled.
The following year Emwazi was named in court papers as being part of a network of United Kingdom and east African based Islamist extremists which is involved in the provision of fund and equipment to Somalia for terrorism related purposes and the facilitation of individuals travel from the United Kingdom . At the time Emwazi denied that he was part of any terrorist grouping.
Police outside flats in west London believed to be where Mohammed Emwazi used to live. Photograph Steve Parsons/PAThen in 2012 he completed a short English language teaching course but was rejected by a number of English language institutes in Saudi Arabia.
By 2013 Emwazi s father suggested that he change his name. He did so adopting the name Mohammed al Ayan but was still refused entry to Kuwait. A week later after being barred from Kuwait for a third time he left his parents home to travel to Turkey ostensibly to work with Syrian refugees. Four months later the police arrived at the family home to say he had crossed the border Emwazi was now on the way to becoming Jihadi John .
He is said to have risen rapidly through the ranks over the next 18 months achieving a leading role within the foreign jihadi corps that comprise a large part of the group s fighting force.
However while Emwazi has rank among the foreign corps and the trust of the leadership he is a long way from the Isis decision making group. He is like a sergeant in an army said a US member. Iraqis run the state Syrians are second and the foreigners will never get close to them.
Emwazi is known to many of his fellow fighters as Abu Abdullah al Britani and has a reputation within the group as a ruthless executioner who will kill on command.
Related The voice alleged to be that of Mohammed Emwazi from London audio
He also played a lead role in the negotiations to free European hostages captured by the jihadis. Two officials involved in the discussions say the person they spoke to via Skype sounded identical to the person now identified as Emwazi.
He is one of a trio of Britons who held hostage Spanish French Danish British and US nationals. The hostages were captured in northern Syria some in Idlib province others in Aleppo and a third group in and around Raqqa province which has since become the main Syrian stronghold of Isis.
The jihadi cell that spawned Isis was initially strong in Idlib province having taken root there in the summer of 2012. From there it spread to Aleppo where hostages that had been captured at that point were held in one of two locations under the eye hospital in the centre of the city or in a factory deep in an industrial zone on its northern outskirts.
By February last year all the hostages including Briton John Cantlie who is one of two remaining western hostages were moved to Raqqa.
It was in Raqqa that the hostages first became aware of the status that Emwazi had developed among Isis.
One former hostage described him as cold sadistic and merciless .
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