A British man pleads guilty to Islamic State-related terrorism charges

LONDON (AP) — A British Muslim convert who was convicted in Turkey of being part of the Islamic State group pleaded guilty at a U.K. court Monday to having a firearm for terrorism purposes and two charges of funding terrorism.

Aine Davis, 39, was deported to the U.K. in August 2022 after serving time in prison in Turkey. He was charged and detained by British counterterrorism police upon arriving at London’s Luton Airport.

Davis on Monday pleaded guilty by video link from a southeast London prison to possessing a firearm for terrorism purposes and funding terrorism between 2013 and 2014.

British authorities had long suspected that Davis was part of an Islamic State group cell known as “The Beatles” — so called because of the men’s British accents — that tortured and killed Western hostages in Syria a decade ago, when IS controlled a large swath of Syria and Iraq. Davis denies being connected to the cell.

Two members of the “Beatles” cell, Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, were captured by U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in 2018 and are serving life sentences in the U.S. A third, Mohammed Emwazi, who carried out executions of captives and was nicknamed “Jihadi John,” was killed in a drone strike in 2015.

Defense lawyer Mark Summers alleged that Britain’s government had tried in vain to get Davis extradited for prosecution there. Summers said the plan was abandoned after prosecutors in Virginia clarified last year that they were not seeking to put Davis on trial as a member of the “Beatles” cell.

Davis travelled from London to Syria in 2013, and was arrested in Istanbul in 2015 after being found using a forged travel document.

His offenses were largely uncovered from his communications with Amal El-Wahabi, his wife at the time, who did not travel with him to Syria.

Prosecutors said he enlisted her to persuade a friend to bring him 20,000 euros to support his terrorist cause in Syria. The friend was stopped at Heathrow Airport in 2014, and El-Wahabi was later convicted of funding terrorism.

Police found photos on El-Wahabi’s phone showing Davis posing with men holding guns and rifles.

Davis will be sentenced on Nov. 13.