'Jihadi John' denies being extremist on recording

A recording has emerged in which Islamic State (IS) militant Mohammed Emwazi, also known as Jihadi John, has denied being an extremist and complained about British security services, a media report said on Tuesday.

Emwazi, who is in his mid-20s and was previously known to British security services, first appeared in a video last August, when he killed US journalist James Foley. He was later thought to have been pictured in the videos of the beheadings of British aid worker David Haines, US journalist Steven Sotloff, British taxi driver-turned-aid worker Alan Henning, American aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig, also known as Peter, and Japanese journalist Kenji Goto.

The tape was made in 2009 by advocacy group Cage after Emwazi was deported from Tanzania and questioned by MI5, BBC reported.

In emails and a meeting with Cage, Emwazi said he had arrived in Tanzania for a safari holiday in 2009 but had been refused entry and was put on a flight to Amsterdam, where a British agent accused him of trying to reach Somalia for terrorism training.

Speaking to Cage when he returned to London later that year, Emwazi said: "He (the MI5 officer) looked at me and he said 'I still believe that you're going to Somalia to train'.

"He just started, you know, going on trying to put words into my mouth."

Emwazi said MI5 officers had been "threatening" him and told him: "We're going to keep a close eye on you Mohammed, we already have been."

He said the agent, who called himself Nick, also asked him what he thought of 9/11, the war in Afghanistan and the July 7 attacks in London.

Emwazi replied "innocent people" had been killed in the 7/7 attacks and it was "extremism". He also said that what happened on 9/11 was "wrong".

"What do you want me to say," he said he told Nick. "If I had the opportunity for those lives come back then I would make those lives come back."

Cage's research director Asim Qureshi, who made the recording on a dictaphone, has been criticised after suggesting that MI5 harassment could have contributed to the radicalisation of Emwazi.