Jihadi John associate Aine Davis jailed in Turkey on terrorism charges

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails

Sign up to our free breaking news emails

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy

A Briton suspected of having been part of an Islamist terror group dubbed “The Beatles” has been jailed in Turkey.

London-born Aine Davis left the UK in 2013 to fight in Syria, and was arrested in Turkey two years later.

He is thought to have been one of the four-strong group featuring Mohammed Emwazi, the killer nicknamed Jihadi John.

Davis was convicted of being a member of a terrorist organisation and jailed for seven-and-a-half years at a court in Silivri, Turkey, on Tuesday.

According to the BBC he told the court he was innocent of the charge and had travelled to Syria “because there was oppression in my country”.

A spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said: “We are aware of the conviction of Aine Leslie Davis for a terrorist offence in Turkey”.

In 2014 Davis’s wife Amal El-Wahabi became the first person convicted of funding terrorism in Syria.

Jailing her after a trial at the Old Bailey, Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC said it was clear that Davis had gone to Syria to fight under the black flag of Isis and that he was preoccupied with martyrdom.

Davis’s WhatsApp profile picture showing him brandishing an automatic weapon was a “particularly shocking image”, the judge said.

El-Wahabi, of north-west London, tricked an old school friend into agreeing to take €20,000 (£15,830) in cash to Turkey for her drug-dealer husband.

During that trial, jurors were told how Davis, then 30, who was born in London with roots in Gambia, met El-Wahabi at a London mosque and had become increasingly interested in Islam.

He left the UK to pursue a jihadist cause in July 2013, leaving El-Wahabi and her two young children to live off benefits in London.

“The Beatles” were said to have been given the collective nickname by hostages due to their distinctive British accents.

Emwazi, who was killed in a US airstrike in 2015, appeared in a number of videos in which captives including British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning were beheaded.

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 it had imposed sanctions on him.

Press Association