British ISIS fanatic who ‘was part of Jihadi John’s notorious Beatles terror cell’ is convicted of terrorism by a Turkish court
A BRIT ISIS fanatic widely believed to have been part of a notorious terror cell dubbed ‘The Beatles’ has been jailed in Turkey.
London-born Aine Davis left the UK in 2013 to fight in Syria and is thought to have been one of four Brit jihadis – including the infamous Mohammed ‘Jihadi John’ Emwazi – involved in torturing and killing foreign hostages in the country.
Davis was arrested in Turkey in 2015 and has now been convicted of being a member of a terrorist organisation.
A court in the western town of Silivri, near Istanbul, jailed him for seven-and-a-half years.
Turkish intelligence officials tracked him to the seaside resort after he was smuggled back across the border by ISIS, a court heard.
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Davis was picked up during a raid on a house, along with three other Brits who were not convicted.
Intercepted texts suggested he was meeting an unidentified man suspected of plotting a terror attack in Turkey, according to the .
The extremist denied the charges against him, telling the court he had travelled to Syria "because there was oppression in my country", the website reports.
But damning evidence of Davis’s true intentions in moving to the region emerged during the 2014 trial of his wife Amal El-Wahabi, who became the first person convicted of funding terrorism in Syria.
Jailing her, Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC said it was clear her husband had gone to Syria to fight under the black flag of ISIS and that he was obsessed with martyrdom.
Davis's WhatsApp profile picture showing him brandishing an automatic weapon was a "particularly shocking image", the judge said.
Davis left El-Wahabi and her two young children to live off benefits in London when he skipped the country to link up with ISIS four years ago.
The group of jihadis he is thought to have been a part of were dubbed "The Beatles" by their captives because of their distinctive British accents.
The group included Emwazi, killed in a US air strike in 2015, who appeared in a number of videos slaughtering hostages including British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning.
The other two suspected members of the group are former child refugee El Shafee Elsheikh, a mechanic from White City in West London, and Alexanda Kotey from Paddington.
In January, US authorities named Kotey as a member of the cell and said they had imposed sanctions on him.
A spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said: "We are aware of the conviction of Aine Leslie Davis for a terrorist offence in Turkey."
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