A Muslim convert suspected of being a part of the IS death squad dubbed ‘The Beatles’ was sentenced to eight years in prison on Monday (13th November) in the United Kingdom. Aine Leslie Davis, 39, of London, was sentenced to six years in prison at the Old Bailey for keeping a firearm and two years for funding terrorism.
He admitted the charges last month after the Court of Appeal denied his request to dismiss them. Davis was deported from Turkey in August and detained upon arrival at Luton airport after serving a 7-and-a-half-year sentence for terrorist group membership.
Notably, he has always denied any involvement with The Beatles cell which had tortured and beheaded Western hostages in Syria between 2012 and 2015. In 2022, a French journalist who was abducted by the Islamic State in Syria testified that his captors had forced him and other hostages to perform a grotesque version of the Eagles’ song ‘Hotel California,’ called ‘Hotel Osama.’
At the trial of terrorist El Shafee Elsheikh in 2022, a 33-year-old former British national, Nicolas Henin remarked, “It was terrifying for us, a joke for them.” Henin is one of several former prisoners who testified in federal court against a member of the notorious kidnapping and murder cell of ISIS known as the “Beatles.”
The Islamic State terrorist group known as “The Beatles” was composed of four British terrorists. The members of the group were called “John,” “Paul,” “George,” and “Ringo” by their hostages, who modelled the group after the English rock band The Beatles.
The terrorist group was responsible for the beheadings of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, as well as British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, in Iraq and Syria in 2014. In Western Raqqa, Syria, the group also held more than 20 Western hostages. They allegedly tortured captives with electroshock weapons and subjected them to mock executions and waterboarding.
In Turkey, one of the terrorists was killed and another was arrested and imprisoned in November 2015. Two were apprehended in early 2018, transferred to US military custody, and sentenced to life in prison in the United States in 2022.
Between 2012 and 2015, several European journalists and charity workers were released after ransoms were paid but the Americans were beheaded and films of their deaths were broadcast by IS for propaganda purposes.
Notably, ‘John’ from the group was later identified as Mohammed Emwazi, ‘George’ was jihadist Alexanda Kotey, and the other two were identified as El Shafee Elsheikh ‘Ringo’ and Aine Lesley Davis ‘Paul’. Jihadi John was killed in a drone strike in 2015, the other two are serving life in the US, and Aine Leslie Davis was sentenced to eight years in prison on Monday (13th November).