“He never takes it off,” said Sheikh Abu Omar al-Ansari, leader of a Sunni resistance group called Jeish al-Taiifa al-Mansoura (Army of the Victorious Sect).
“He told me: ‘I would rather blow myself up and die as a martyr — and kill a few Americans along the way — than be arrested and humiliated by them’.”
His account, passed to The Sunday Times by a reliable intermediary, is the first description of Zarqawi in Iraq since Washington slapped a $25m bounty on his head, the same as the reward for the killing or capture of Osama Bin Laden.
The sheikh’s two-day meeting with the Jordanian-born Zarqawi provided a rare insight into the terrorist accused of masterminding the videotaped beheadings of western hostages — including Ken Bigley, the Liverpool-born engineer, in 2004 — and countless suicide bombings and assassinations.
“He is known by America and the world as the prince of beheadings, the murdering sheikh of innocents, the blood spiller,” said Ansari.
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By contrast, he said, Zarqawi seemed a “simple” man and put on a show of humility at a two-day meeting to secure the co-operation of the Army of the Victorious Sect and other groups with Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
According to the sheikh, Zarqawi sat cross-legged on a rug to eat with his guests and some of his 12 bodyguards, most of whom also wore suicide belts and carried American and Russian automatic rifles.
He helped his guests to wash before praying and devoted five hours a day to reading the Koran, listening to taped sermons at night and holding religious discussions with his entourage, Ansari said.
The sheikh also claimed one of the most widely circulated pieces of supposed western intelligence about Zarqawi — that he sought treatment in Iraq after losing a leg in a US missile strike on Al-Qaeda militants — is false.
Ansari confirmed that he has both his legs and “walks with confidence and balance”.
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He appeared to have recovered from chest and shoulder injuries he suffered in a separate US airstrike last year.
Zarqawi was born to a Palestinian refugee family in Jordan, where he is said to have grown up a tattooed, semi-literate, Shi’ite-hating thug.
It was after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003 that Zarqawi became notorious for large-scale attacks, including the bombing that August of the UN headquarters in Iraq.
The attack killed Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN secretary-general’s envoy to Iraq, and 21 others.
A year later, the Arab television station Al-Jazeera broadcast a tape in which Bin Laden called Zarqawi “the prince of Al-Qaeda in Iraq”.
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Intelligence analysts are divided over how much authority Zarqawi commands in the insurgency. Some in the Middle East have even suggested that Zarqawi may not exist.
Yet there is little doubt that the apparently modest figure Ansari met was the man on wanted leaflets distributed by US forces across the country.
According to the sheikh, Zarqawi was dressed casually in trousers and a simple shirt. He wore a light beard and moustache and his hair was cut short.
The meeting with Zarqawi had been arranged to help insurgent groups co-ordinate their attacks on coalition forces.
Ansari’s Sunni group was founded in May 2003 and first made headlines a year later when it claimed to have kidnapped a pair of Russian energy workers. They were freed a week later.
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Al-Qaeda members said the insurgent groups attending the meeting were discussing possible co-ordination of their attacks and plans to create an Islamic state. “We exchanged talks and views and I spent many hours with him on the first day,” said Ansari. “He did not dominate the meeting and refused to impose his views.”
At prayers Zarqawi, 39, deferred to his elders, telling them: “I am younger than you and of less knowledge and status.” He could be heard weeping during worship, which is not uncommon among extremely devout Muslims.
The next morning, the leaders of four other Sunni groups joined the gathering. There was little water so Zarqawi found a bucket and poured for his guests — a task usually left to junior servants. Dishes of rice, chicken and meat stew were served to the leaders as they sat on woollen rugs on the floor.
The meeting led to the subsequent announcement about an umbrella body called the Mujaheddin Council, which posted a statement on the internet two weeks ago. The council claims to be representing Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Army of the Victorious Sect and the four lesser-known Sunni groups. Other leading Sunni groups were conspicuously absent.
The development suggested to some Middle East watchers that despite his reputation, Zarqawi may be struggling to consolidate his grip on the resistance. Many Iraqis have tired of violence and politicians were beginning negotiations this weekend to form a coalition government after election results announced on Friday.
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“Zarqawi is not in the position he used to be before — he seems to have lost the hospitality that he enjoyed in the past in Iraq,” said Dr Nimrod Raphaeli, a specialist at the Middle East Media Research Institute in Washington. “He is trying to find a new base and new links with other groups.”