Peter Stefanovic filmed in possible encounter with alleged ISIL executioner 'Jihadi John'

November 18, 2014 - 3:40PM
Update 19/11/2014
 
Footage has emerged of a possible encounter between Australian Nine News reporter Peter Stefanovic and the British-born alleged ISIL executioner known as "Jihadi John" four years ago.
Stefanovic was in Tottenham, North London, interviewing a group of protesters on the first night of the 2011 riots, when one man demanded his attention.
"Please, please, let me tell you something," the man says to Stefanovic.
The man in the footage bears a striking resemblance to former British rapper Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, who has since been dubbed "Jihadi John" by the UK media.
The highly agitated man also speaks with a lyrical tone, suggesting he may be the rapper who abandoned his music career to become one of the world's most wanted men.
"The police are protecting the police station, they're not protecting the people," the man tells Stefanovic, referring to a burning bus.
"A policeman said it out of his own words when I asked him, 'Why are you here?' he said, 'I'm here to protect the police'.
"Basically, they want to see it burn down so the damage can look massive."
Stefanovic said tensions were running high on the night he met the man, who may be Bary, in London.

"The London riots were just beginning and as I was filming a piece to camera in Tottenham just after midnight crowds starting gathering around me listening to what I was saying," Stefanovic said.
"I just decided to interview the young men around me. Abdel-Bary kind of just took over and went on an aggressive rant about how he believed the police weren't doing their jobs.
"The interview itself was very brief. He spoke for a minute or two then I moved on."
Stefanovic said it was only recently that he and his cameraman discovered they had the footage.
"If it is in fact Jihad John I was speaking to then it is a very odd feeling," he said.
Bary, the son of Adel Abdul Bary - who remains in custody in the US awaiting trial over two 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania carried out by al-Qaeda operatives - rapped under the names "L-Jinny" or "Lyricist Jinn" and several of his singles were played on British radio.
But it is believed he was radicalised after 2011 riots and left his family's Maida Vale home in West London to join Islamic State in Syria last year.
Bary was initially suspected by UK intelligence of being the masked, black-clad militant filmed brandishing a knife and speaking with an English accent in at least two on-camera beheadings of Western hostages.
In early 2014, he reportedly posted a photo on Twitter featuring a severed head with the caption "Chillin' with my homie, or what's left of him."
UK intelligence, however, have since revised their assessment and are yet to name a suspect.
"Investigators have previously claimed Abdel-Bary could be the so-called Jihad John. But if he isn't, they still believe the former rapper is an extremist fighting in Syria with close ties to the masked executioner," Stefanovic said.
The discovery of the London riots footage coincides with speculation that Jihadi John was wounded in a joint US-Iraqi airstrike last week.
"We are aware of reports," a British Foreign Office spokeswoman said in an official statement.
"We cannot confirm them."
The spokeswoman said the Foreign Office had received information suggesting that a man on their most wanted list had been injured in a town close to the Syrian border nearly a week ago.
The Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was also reportedly wounded in the attack by American and Iraqi jets on a summit of IS leaders.