Member of notorious ISIS ‘Beatles’ torture-murder cell jailed in Britain for 8 years
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Aine Davis (front row, second from right) was arrested by Britain after being deported from Turkey in August 2023.
PHOTO: THE CROWN PROSECUTION SERVICE
Follow topic:
LONDON - A British Muslim convert who was allegedly part of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria’s (ISIS) notorious “Beatles” kidnap and murder cell was jailed for eight years for terrorist offences on Monday.
Aine Davis, 39, had in October admitted to two charges of financing terrorism between 2013 and 2014 and one of possessing a firearm for a purpose connected to terrorism. It followed the Court of Appeal dismissing a bid for the charges to be dropped.
The Beatles group, so called because of the members’ distinctive British accents, tortured and beheaded victims and released videos of the gruesome murders.
Davis, who has always denied being connected with the cell, was arrested in Turkey in 2015 and sentenced in 2017 to 7½ years for membership of ISIS.
He was released in July in 2022 and deported from Turkey to Britain the next month. He was re-arrested when he arrived at Luton Airport
He has since been held at the high security Belmarsh Prison in south-east London.
Davis had been set to stand trial on the terror charges, after pleading not guilty in March, before changing his plea in October.
Active in Syria from 2012 to 2015, the Beatles group was allegedly involved in abducting more than two dozen journalists and relief workers from the United States and at least 15 other countries.
El Shafee Elsheikh Alexanda Amon Kotey
Another member of the group, executioner Mohammed Emwazi, known as “Jihadi John”
Sentencing Davis at the Old Bailey court, Judge Mark Lucraft ordered that he serve six years for the firearms offence and two years for terrorism funding. The terms will run consecutively.
“It is clear you have been with fighters in Syria and that you were not there for lawful purposes,” Judge Lucraft said, noting there were images from 2013 of Davis with firearms.
However, the judge noted: “I make it clear I am sentencing you for the offences on the indictment and for nothing else.”
Davis’s lawyer Mark Summers issued an apology to the Syrian people and others on his client’s behalf.
“He has a number of apologies to make through me today – the first is to the Syrian people,” he told the court. “The presence of him, those like him and the groups he associated with there, caused more harm than good.” AFP
