Two worlds. Two identities and the ever-present, very real risk of death.
That was the life of Morten Storm, a radical Islamist turned double agent, who’s now lifting the lid on some of the world’s best-kept secrets.
His life is the stuff of spy novels, and he talks about it in his book: “Agent Storm: My Life Inside al Qaeda and the CIA,” co-authored by CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank and Tim Lister. Both men are CNN contributors.
He also recently sat down with CNN Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson.
“I had these different names. I had different personalities,” Storm said. “I was Morten Storm, Murad Storm, Abu Osama, Abu Mujahid.”
He was so trusted by senior al Qaeda leaders he once fixed one up with a European wife, all the while — Storm claims — working for Western intelligence agencies.
“For half a decade, I moved back and forth between two worlds and two identities — when one misplaced sentence could have cost me my life,” he writes in the book. “Traveling between atheism and hardline Islam, English and Arabic.”
“It’s some kind of schizophrenic lifestyle,” he said.
Excerpt: Finding a wife for Anwar al-Awlaki
Growing up
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The latter tried to buy his silence after it learned he was considering going public with his story.
Storm claims the Danish intelligence agency offered payments totaling 1.5m Danish krone ($260,000) over five years.
He told the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten that PET had offered him the money tax-free.
But he said he rejected the deal because PET had broken a series of promises to him, including providing permanent residence status in Denmark for his foreign wife.
After so many years playing so many different parts, Storm’s toughest role may lie ahead: staying alive.
He is in hiding after several death threats from militant Islamists who were once his comrades. The threat was made abundantly clear last year when ISIS fighters in Syria issued a video in which they shot at a picture of him attached to a wall.
“Either they will slice your throat, behead you, or they shoot you and hang you up and crucify you,” Storm said about his time as a spy. “I would get executed.”
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