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Described in his Twitter profile as a “Medical doctor trained in the UK” and “Humanitarian aid worker”, Shajul Islam was a key eyewitness on the ground during the attack, offering himself for media video calls and uploading mobile phone footage of victims which was shared thousands of times.
Islam, from Stratford, East London, was interviewed by a number of mainstream broadcasters, including NBC News, but none notified viewers that he had previously been tried in the UK for terrorism offences and struck off the medical register by the General Medical Council after a confidential tribunal.
Islam, described as a “committed jihadist” by foreign intelligence agency MI6, was tried for kidnapping John Cantlie and Jeroen Oerlemans, journalists from the UK and the Netherlands, while fighting with an Islamist group in northern Syria.
The case against Islam was dropped, however, when the prosecution was unable to call Cantlie or Oerlemans to testify against him.