Tam Hussein describes his friendship with Ali Almanasafi, the 22-year-old Briton who was killed near Idlib in Syria
I knew Ali Almanasfi not as a terrorist but as someone who wanted to repent for his past. Earlier this year I went to Syria to report on the Islamist brigades, and he asked if I would take him over the border. I refused as he was out on parole. I wasn't going to help him break the law again, especially as his mother was sick and he was doing so well.
He said he wanted to do something about Bashar al-Assad, who was an oppressor who had massacred children in Darayya, where Ali's mother owned a flat. Above all, he wanted to make amends for his past. He wanted to restore his sense of Syrian honour, or sharaf, by sacrificing himself for the rebel cause. He went to Syria just like many went to Spain in the 1930s, full of conviction that his cause was just.
The first time I met Ali was in Damascus in 2008. He was a tall, imposing teenager who spoke Syrian dialect fluently.He could have passed for a native, had it not been for his street bop that belonged to the Acton council estate where he grew up. Despite his towering size he was a gentle soul, and clearly looked up to his brother. He had come to Syria because he was in trouble with the law in Britain and his brother had asked me to talk some sense into him.
I ended up spending a lot of time with him sitting in cafes and restaurants in Damascus. Ali had enrolled on a bricklaying course in London and waxed lyrical about the trade. By the end of his time in Damascus I shared his contempt for shoddy Syrian brickwork. In his mother's small flat in Darayya he would also tell me about life on "the street"; about the gangs, the turf wars, the girls and the drugs. He felt guilty because he knew that he was from a respected Syrian family in which honour and religion were most important, not who was the biggest bad man in town.
When I returned to London in 2009 I kept in touch with Ali. When my boy was born he was there, showing him much tenderness. Then one day I received a remorseful phone call. Ali had been drunk and struck an old man in a shop. When he regained his senses, he said that he couldn't believe it was him. Ali was always ashamed about that.
I next met him in Feltham young offender institution. The Ali I met there was remorseful but getting used to life on the inside. From there he moved to Portland prison, where we kept in touch by phone and by mail.
With that customary Syrian charm, Ali always asked about my family and my boy. But prison seemed to have changed him. He became increasingly religious; the ghetto talk, the accent, the slang slowly disappeared. He became more articulate and he quoted Qur'anic verses asking me if there were any novels or history books that I would recommend. I was happy for him because he had found direction in his life.
When he was released in 2011, the smooth-faced Ali I knew had turned into a shaggy, bearded one. He was on parole, which would have ended in July. When I met him in London he hugged me as if I was his long lost brother, nearly crushing me with his strength. As we walked from Victoria towards Hyde Park Corner he told me about his optimism for the future. How prison had been a blessing in disguise. His dream was to get his driving licence, get a van and get back to his education. He said he had started talking to his family about Islam and that his mother was overjoyed by this change. We saw each other a few times after that.
When the conflict broke out in Syria I noticed his attention turned increasingly towards his country of origin. Over the phone he would express his distaste for what the regime was doing, especially after the Darayya massacre. But I didn't suspect that he was thinking of going there. In fact, he had told me he was under the wing of an old Jamaican carpenter who had converted to Islam.
Before I set out for Syria in February 2013, he insisted on meeting me. He was eager to find out about my journey, about my route and the preliminary preparation. He revealed that he too was thinking about going over but that he was going "to do it smart not like the other guys he knew". According to him, some guys went over and were told to return because they were lazy.He told a story of a Moroccan and an Egyptian who lost their lives after being unprepared. He said some of his friends had been acting suspiciously and had drawn attention to him. He suggested that intelligence services had approached him.
In January, his brother received a text from Ali saying that he was off. His family never saw him again. A few weeks later the police and parole officer came looking for him. I found out after my return from Syria that he had adopted the name Abu Julayb, and was based in the Qusair and Hama area, speaking to his family on Skype occasionally. Last week I asked where he was and I was told he had moved to Aleppo.
I am pretty certain he was not with the Nusra Front because of the secretive nature of their recruitment process and their numbers being so small. He would either be in a Free Syrian Army brigade or an independent Islamist brigade.
• Tam Hussein is a journalist who has worked in the Middle East