Aines Davis: The fourth member of the jihadist cell ‘The Beatles’ will be tried in the United Kingdom | International

The last member of a cell of the self-styled Islamic State (ISIS, for its acronym in English) nicknamed the Beatles He has been charged with terrorism in the United Kingdom, his native country, where he was formally arrested on Wednesday night. Aines Davis had been deported from Turkey, after spending six years in an Ankara prison, and this Thursday he appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London.

His arrest is the result of an extensive investigation by the Metropolitan Police Counter-Terrorism Command and marks the first and only on British soil of one of the four jihadis known as the Beatles. The group’s nickname is due to its members’ British accent, identified by Western hostages held in ISIS-controlled enclaves in Syria and Iraq. It also identified them with a way of operating marked by pathological brutality, according to witnesses to their atrocities. The group is attributed the murder of almost thirty captives.

Aine Davis, 38, of west London, denies having been part of the terrorist group. However, in her brief court appearance on Thursday, she refused to comment on the charges, and whether she will ultimately plead guilty or not guilty. Her next appointment will be on September 2 before the criminal court of the Old Bailey (popularly known for the street in which she is located), where a pre-trial hearing will take place. In Davis’s history prior to radicalization there is a history of drug crimes and in 2006 he had been imprisoned for possession of a firearm.

His march to Syria took place in 2013 and just two years later he was arrested near Istanbul. British intelligence identified him in the months after several executions of ISIS prisoners, broadcast publicly through the network, a way of disseminating the jihadist group’s campaign of terror.

Eight years ago, the British equivalent to the Public Prosecutor’s Office (the so-called Crown Prosecution Service) already authorized Scotland Yard to charge Davis with terrorism, so the charges that have been attributed to him upon his arrival in the United Kingdom update those that already existed against him – under the UK Terrorism Act – including possession of a firearm for terrorist purposes and financial transactions for terrorist purposes.

Of his alleged accomplices, the best known was the so-called jihadist John – some members of the cell had aliases with the names of the Liverpool gang, in this case John Lennon. Davis himself has acknowledged having met him at a mosque. Real name Mohammed Emwazi, and considered the leader of the cell, the jihadist nicknamed John is the only one of the four who has died, after being hit in a drone attack promoted by US forces in November 2015, precisely on the same day. that Davis was detained in Turkey.

The remaining two, Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, were captured in Syria in 2015 and transferred to the United States, where they remain imprisoned for some of the most macabre crimes recorded in the fight against ISIS. The British Home Office withdrew their nationality in 2019.

Between 2014 and 2015, many of the beheadings of hostages, mostly American, British and Japanese captured by ISIS, were filmed and distributed. They were usually accompanied by threats to the West. The US authorities attribute the murder of 27 hostages to the cell, including the American journalist James Foley, captured in Syria in 2012 while covering the war, and executed two years later. The manner of executing him was repeated in numerous recordings: the prisoners were dressed in orange jumpsuits, similar to those worn by prisoners in prisons in the United States, and their captors appeared completely in black, with their faces covered and only their eyes visible. view.

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