A British man accused of belonging to the “Beatles” cell affiliated with the terrorist organization ISIS appeared before a British court today, Thursday, and was imprisoned on terrorism charges after Turkey handed him over to Britain.
The cell was known to have held Western hostages, tortured and executed them in Syria.
Ayn Leslie Davis, 38, was a member of the terrorist cell that held Western hostages in Syria between 2012 and 2015 and was known as “The Beatles” because of the British accent of its members.
Two of the four appeared before the courts in the United States because of the killing of a number of American prisoners, while another was killed in Syria.
British police arrested Davis after he was deported by Turkish authorities and arrived at Luton Airport near London on Wednesday evening.
He was charged in London with offenses related to the financing of terrorist activities dating back to 2014, and possession of a firearm in 2013-2014 “for terrorist-related purposes”.
Davis appeared in a London court flanked by two police officers on Thursday morning, speaking only to confirm his name and that he had no fixed place of residence.
His lawyer confirmed that he would not file a petition or request payment of bail at this stage.
Chief Justice Paul Goldspring said bail would be denied anyway because “Davis might be tempted to travel with false documents” and ordered his imprisonment.
He referred the case to the Crown Court, which deals with serious criminal offenses, with a pre-trial hearing scheduled for September 2 before the Central Criminal Court known as the “Old Bailey”.
Goldspring said that if convicted, Davis would face “years, not months” in prison.
The four Beatles are accused of kidnapping 27 journalists and humanitarian workers from the United States, Britain, Europe, New Zealand, Russia and Japan.
The cell members, who hail from west London, are suspected of torturing and killing American journalists James Foley and Stephen Sotloff, as well as humanitarians Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller. The extremist organization ISIS published propaganda videos showing their execution on social media.
In January 2018, Kurdish forces in Syria arrested two members of the “Beatles” cell, Alexanda Kote, 38, and Al-Shafei Al-Sheikh, 34, and handed them over to US forces in Iraq before sending them to Britain.
Eventually, London extradited them to the United States in 2020, where they were accused of taking hostages, plotting to kill Americans, and supporting a foreign terrorist organization.
Kotey pleaded guilty in September to the murder and was sentenced the following April to life imprisonment.
As for the sheikh, he was convicted of all charges in April and will be sentenced next week.
The fourth member of the Beatles, Muhammad Muwazi, was killed in an American march in Syria in 2015.
Today, Thursday, the court heard the statements of Davis, who stated that the Turkish authorities arrested him in Istanbul in 2015 on suspicion of belonging to the extremist organization ISIS, and that he was using a false passport.
He was convicted in Turkey 18 months later and sentenced to seven and a half years in prison and transferred in July to an immigration detention center where he remained until his deportation this week.
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