Mohammed Emwazi: Jihadi John's mum watched beheading on TV and said ''this is my son''

Jihadi John’s mum told police she immediately realised her son was the brutal IS killer when she watched the first hostage beheading video.

Mohammed Emwazi, 26, was last week identified as the masked Islamic State executioner who has murdered aid workers and journalists.

Ghaneya Emwazi, 47, recognised her eldest child as the knife-wielding fanatic in the horrific propaganda film in which James Foley was murdered.

Her husband Jasem said: “She was shocked. She became frantic and started screaming, ‘This is my son’.”

Emwazi’s parents were questioned by Kuwaiti police this weekend after he was named as the sick IS militant. Mr Emwazi, 51, told the authorities in the Gulf State that his wife became frantic when she realised that Mohammed was the masked man in the video, local media reported.

The IS killer’s father also told Kuwaiti police that he last heard from his son in 2013, when he called them from Turkey and said he was travelling to Syria to volunteer for humanitarian work.

Although Mrs Emwazi has confirmed that she immediately recognised her son’s voice from the gruesome footage of Foley’s filmed murder, she did not say when the actual viewing took place.

The sickening video shocked the world when it was released by the terror group’s propaganda wing, known as Al Hayat Media Centre, on August 19 last year.

It is also not clear whether Mrs Emwazi told security services that she had identified her son in the video, although it is understood investigators have known Mohammed Emwazi was Jihadi John since at least September.

Mr Emwazi was a member of the Bedoon group of stateless people denied citizenship by countries in the Gulf.

This weekend is understood to have been the first round of interviews that Kuwaiti intelligence officials will carry out on family members - including Mohammed’s brother Omar, 21.

However MI5 may have already been in contact with them after the intelligence community became aware of Jihadi John’s true identity. Any information found in the interviews in Kuwait will be passed to MI5 and CIA analysts.

The Mirror has obtained information regarding the interview with the family. Jihadi John’s full Arabic name can be revealed as Mohammed Jasim Abdul Kareem Moazy.

Speaking to intelligence officers, Emwazi’s father Jasem, 51, said: “When his mother watched the film about Daesh (IS) she saw the young man covering his face in the James Foley video.

"He threatened the USA. He said he would kill. She was shocked. She became frantic and started screaming, ‘This is my son.’

“We were all watching the video but were scared to see it. Then we carried on watching and saw that it was Mohammed.

“My son is religious and he hates the West. He feels they have abused him.”

The father told officers he lived in Kuwait after arriving from Iraq and worked as a police officer until 1993.

Mr Emwazi then brought his wife and children, including Mohammed, to Britain in 1993. They settled in the north-west London suburbs of Maida Vale and Queen’s Park.

But they have now returned and are lying low in Jahra, a suburb of Kuwait City.

Jasem is said to work in a supermarket while one of his daughters, a trained architect, also works somewhere in the city.

The father told police: “He was planning to get married but because he didn’t have enough money he decided to go back to the UK.

“Mohammed was religious when he was young. I haven’t been in contact with him since 2013.

“I got a call from him when he was in Turkey and he told us he was going to Syria to volunteer for a humanitarian campaign.

“He said, ‘Please forgive me if I do anything wrong.’ It was the last call or contact I had with him.”

Mohammed last came to Kuwait in September 2009 and worked for a computer firm until April 2010.

In July 2010 he returned to the UK after making plans to marry but was stopped by the authorities from returning to Kuwait after the authorities became suspicious of his activities.

His plans to marry collapsed, it is said, after his fiance’s family decided he “wasn’t good enough for her”.

The local source said: “Her family refused to let Emwazi marry her because they didn’t think he was good enough for her.

“She is a native Kuwaiti but he is a stateless Bedoon. He was seen as part of the Kuwaiti underclass.”

Sources close to the investigation believe this may be the reason why Mohammed bares such hatred towards the West.

Another member of the family, a cousin of Jihadi John named only as Saoud, today sends a message to him saying: “We want you to die. We hate you. We hope you will be killed soon and this will be good news for our family.”

The deeply conservative, Muslim family are said to be deeply ashamed at being connected with IS.

Kuwait sources say the family are wealthy through owning a taxi firm and a mobile phone kiosk in London. They always rent a large house when they come to stay in the Jahra suburb of Kuwait.

The Emwazi family belong to the Bedoon ethnic minority, a stateless people denied citizenship by countries in the Gulf.

Many Bedoon people are looking down upon in Kuwaiti society and are not given full citizenship, meaning they can struggle to find jobs and be treated by the health system.

A video has emerged believed to show Jihadi John ranting on camera shortly after he arrived in Syria from the UK in 2013.

The footage is of two bands of fanatical fighters joining forces under the command of notorious terrorist Omar al-Shishani. At the front stands a man thought to be Mohammed Emwazi. It shows a pledge of allegiance made when the so-called Army of Muhammad Brigades group joined forces with the so-called Brigade of Migrants, of which Emwazi is believed to have been a member.

The speaker proclaims: “This army announces unity within its ranks for the sake of implementing the Shariah and returning this blessed land to God the most glorified and the most high under the leadership of the emir Umar al-Shishani.”

Emwazi, now 26, attempted to join al-Shabaab in Somalia after finishing his university course in London in 2009, but was refused entry to Tanzania and returned to Britain. He later travelled to Syria.