For 80 seconds yesterday morning, Mohammad Sidique Khan, the ringleader of the July 7 suicide bombers who killed 52 people, was seen as a loving father, cradling his daughter as he bids her farewell.

The previously unseen footage, shown at Kingston Crown Court, depicts Khan gently stroking baby Maryam’s hair, expressing his affection and explaining why he is sacrificing his life. He asks her to look after her mother, and urges her to “learn to fight” when she grows up.

“Sweetheart, not long to go now,” he says. “And I’m going to really, really, miss you a lot. I’m thinking about it already. Look, I absolutely love you to bits and you have been the happiest thing in my life. You and your mum, absolutely brilliant. I don’t know what else to say.”

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The man who is planning to murder soon tells his daughter that he is going to miss her. The latter part I identify with, and it fills me with sadness. But it can’t change the other part, the part about the man wanting to kill and his feeling that he is justified in doing so, and it is no help my or your wanting to use the love that he is talking about, using it to reverse or change the desire to blow up a bomb in crowded place.

Those who are his enemies are filled with the same zeal. The pilots in Bush’s army dropping their bombs on Iraqi cities aren’t thinking that they are doing anything unjustifiable. Everyone is so fucking happy.

I’d like to talk to the daughter in twenty years.

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