Newly published emails have revealed the Mohammed Emwazi, 26, the man now known as the Islamic State executioner Jihadi John, considered suicide five years ago as a way to escape what he saw as mistreatment by British authorities. The claims that he felt like “a dead man walking” because of the constant surveillance, and that he thought of taking too many sleeping pills so he could sleep forever, were made in email exchanges with a Mail on Sunday reporter in 2010. The online conversation took place before he left Britain in order to join ISIS.

The correspondence with Security Editor Robert Verkaik was very close to paranoid, and included persistent complaints that everything he did was being watched by intelligence officers. They show that he was aware that British security services were closing in on him.

The reasons that police officials were monitoring Emwazi contrast sharply with his portrayal of himself as an innocent victim. Recent revelations show that he belonged to a secret, Britain-based Osama Bin Laden sleeper cell known as The London Boys, which had plans for carrying out violence in the West. He was also involved with a street gang that targeted Belgravia’s wealthy residents with stun guns. He was arrested for trying to force his way through security without a passport in Tanzania in 2009. He was interrogated by British intelligence, although he was never arrested or charged.

In 2009, after Emwazi graduated from London’s University of Westminster with a degree in computer programming, he began making trips to Kuwait, where he was born. These trips triggered lengthy interrogation sessions that eventually resulted in him losing his Kuwaiti visa. He surfaced in Turkey early in 2013, and months later was in Syria, appearing on videos showing him beheading Western hostages.

Richard Hilton, a UKIP parliamentary candidate, is under fire for tweeting that it is a shame Jihadi John did not kill himself. He took the post down almost immediately, realizing it might be misunderstood, but it had already been seen by many. The UKIP party national executive committee is considering whether to take disciplinary action against Hilton. Hilton apologized in a statement, saying he was not advocating suicide, but that the “world would be a better place” without Jihadi John.