gair rhydd y Monday November 24th 2014 | freeword | Issue 1038
In this week’s issue: Gair Rhydd news bring you a housing special in time for you to rent your first property, UKIP secure a second seat, and advice on managing your mental health
“Cardiff Student” sighted in ISIS video Police are currently investigating the identity of jihadist thought to be former Cardiff resident Nasser Muthana
Michael O’ConnellDavidson
A
medical student who was set to enrol at Cardiff University, Nasser Muthana, was thought to have been included in the latest propaganda video released by insurgent group ISIS. The video, which contains a number of disturbing scenes, appears to show the former student beheading a Syrian soldier with a knife. This is the same video which made headlines on Sunday, in which London-born “Jihadi John” was shown taking the life of aid worker Peter
Kassig. The Foreign Office and the U.S. State Department have confirmed that the video is legitimate. A large number of news outlets have incorrectly reported that Muthana was a current student at Cardiff University. However, Gair Rhydd has sought clarification and can confirm that while Muthana lived and was educated in Cardiff, he was only offered a place on a medicine degree. Muthana left his parental home in the Welsh capital to join ISIS
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earlier this year. It is thought that he travelled to Turkey and crossed the border into Syria from there. Muthana was later joined by his younger brother, Aseel. They are 20 and 17 years old respectively. He first appeared in a video earlier this year in which he and two other British-born insurgents invited Muslims to join ISIS and establish a self-styled “caliphate” under Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. A number of communications followed, including one which boasted that
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he was “getting good with these bombs” and showed a demolished Iraqi army installation. Muthana was positively identified in the video by his father earlier in the week. Speaking to the media, he said: “It looks like him. I can’t be certain because of the quality of the picture and you can never be sure. But it could be him.” Speaking to local news outlets, he said that his son deserved the death penalty if his involvement could be confirmed.
Pictured: The jihadist thought to be Nasser Muthama, who received an offer to study at Cardiff
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