LONDON — An alleged member of an Islamic State group cell nicknamed “The Beatles” that tortured and killed Western hostages was charged with terrorism offenses in Britain Thursday after being deported from Turkey.
Aine Davis, 38, appeared in a London court after being arrested on Wednesday night when he arrived on a flight from Turkey and was charged with offenses under the Terrorism Act, the Metropolitan Police Service said.
Davis, from Hammersmith in west London, was accused of persuading his wife to try and smuggle around $20,000 to him in Syria, using a friend who hid the money in her knickers.
He was also accused of possessing a firearm for terrorist purposes after posing with a Kalashnikov assault rifle in pictures he sent to his wife in Britain.
During his appearance on Thursday at London’s Westminster Magistrates Court, Senior District Judge Paul Goldspring ordered Davis held in custody until his next court appearance on Sept. 2. Davis spoke briefly to confirm his name and date of birth; he wasn’t asked to enter a plea.
He was arrested in Turkey in 2015 and convicted of membership of ISIS in 2017. During his trial there, he denied being one of “The Beatles.”
The militants, dubbed “The Beatles” by their captives because of their British accents, held about two dozen Westerners a decade ago, when ISIS controlled a large swath of Syria and Iraq.
Several of the captives were killed in gross beheadings that were broadcast online, including Americans James Foley and Steven Sotloff and Britons David Haines and Alan Henning.
The group’s four alleged members knew one another in West London before traveling to the Middle East and joining ISIS.
Mohammed Emwazi, who carried out the executions and was nicknamed “Jihadi John,” was killed in a drone strike in 2015. Two others, Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, were captured by US-backed Kurdish forces in 2018 and are imprisoned in the US
Kotey, 38, was jailed for life in Virginia in April, after admitting kidnap, conspiracy to murder and providing material support for terrorism. Elsheikh, 33, was found guilty following a trial in the US and will be sentenced later this year.
During his trial in Turkey, Davis said he believed he had been linked to Emwazi because the men had attended the same mosque in London.
He had traveled to Syria earlier in the country’s civil war to participate in aid work but had mostly been living in Turkey, he told the Turkish court, dismissing images showing him posing with armed militants and weapons as “stupid photos” that he had posed for as a joke.
Davis’s wife, Amal el-Wahabi, was jailed for two years and four months in November 2014 for trying to smuggle 20,000 euros to Davis, using a friend as a courier.
Her friend, Nawal Msaad, a university student, was cleared by a jury at the Old Bailey after she told them she did not know what the money was for.
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism