After being detained without delay when his deportation aircraft from Turkey arrived at Luton Airport last night, a Briton who is allegedly a member of the lethal UK-born terrorist group known as The Beatles and affiliated with ISIS was today charged with crimes related to terrorism.
Charges have been brought against Aine Leslie Davis, 38, also known as Aine Leslie Rodrigues and Hamza Davis, for offences under sections 15, 17, and 57 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
The last charge involves possession of a firearm for terrorist purposes, whereas the previous two charges deal with financing for terrorism.
London-born Davis has been remanded in jail and is scheduled to appear in court this morning at Westminster Magistrates’ Court.
After Davis landed in the UK last night on a flight from Turkey, where he had been serving a sentence of seven and a half years for being a top ISIS member until his release and deportation, police from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command detained him at Luton Airport.
He was brought to a police station in south London where he was later charged with the terrorism-related offences.
The 38-year-old, who was born in Hammersmith to a dinner lady and a father who sold clothing at John Lewis, has consistently denied being Jihadi Paul, a group that was given the Beatles’ moniker because all of its members had British accents and are from London.
Davis left the UK in 2013 to join ISIS, but on November 12, 2015, he was captured during a raid on a house outside of Istanbul.
That same day, Mohammed Emwazi, a.k.a. “Jihadi John,” was killed by a US drone strike as he got out of his vehicle in Raqqa.
Davis said the photographs of him with fighters during his Turkish trial “dumb shots” that he had taken for laughs.
He acknowledged knowing Emwazi from their shared mosque in west London, but he denied being friends with him or being involved in his horrible acts.
But he was imprisoned in Ankara after being found guilty of being a senior ISIS member; he was finally freed and deported yesterday.
Davis has kept his British citizenship despite joining ISIS, which means he might be extradited from Turkey back to the UK.
Some people have criticised this, saying he should be stripped of his citizenship and transferred to The Gambia instead since he spent a significant amount of his youth there.
He reportedly drove his mother “crazy” and lived with his grandma there. Later, he went back to London.
“The CPS authorised the Metropolitan Police to charge Aine Leslie Junior Davis for terrorism offences in 2014, and after being deported to England by Turkish authorities he was arrested at Luton airport following his return to the UK,” a spokesman for the CPS Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division said.
Mr. Davis, 38, is accused with terrorism offences and having a gun in his hands with terrorist intent.
The Crown Prosecution Service reminds everyone that Mr. Davis is the subject of ongoing criminal proceedings and has a right to a fair trial.
The Beatles, under the direction of “Jihadi John,” a Westminster student whose true name was Mohammed Emwazi, decapitated Western hostages and are said to have killed 27 people.
Emwazi was killed by a US drone attack in 2015, and two other gang members were found guilty of terrorism-related crimes in the US in April.
El Shafee Elsheikh, also known as “Jihadi Ringo,” and Alexanda Kotey, also known as “Jihadi George,” are both British, but they gave up their nationality when they enlisted in ISIS in Syria in 2014.
In Virginia, the US, Kotey and Elsheikh were both convicted guilty of terrorism-related offences, with the former receiving a life sentence. Later this month, Elsheikh will get his punishment for his misdeeds.
ITV News reports that Kotey admitted to US interrogators that he was friends with Davis and had extended an invitation to him for lunch, but that he was not engaged in holding captives for ISIS.
Davis was detained by police from the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command who were waiting at the entrance upon his arrival in Britain yesterday night.
If he were to lose his citizenship, it would be similar to the situation of Shamima Begum, who had her British citizenship revoked after she joined ISIS by the previous Home Secretary Sajid Javid.
This caused a controversy since the government said that because her parents were Bangladeshis, she would have that nation’s citizenship.
She would not be permitted to enter Bangladeshi territory, however, according to the administration there, which claimed she lacked citizenship.
Begum subsequently filed a lawsuit against the UK government, alleging that it had rendered her stateless in violation of British law.
The Supreme Court found in favour of the Home Secretary in February 2021, finding that she was not permitted to return to the UK and that her rights had not been violated by the decision to deny her entry.
“We will always safeguard the safety and security of the UK, and we will not allow anything to jeopardise this,” a representative for the Home Office said.
It would be improper to speak more while police investigations are underway, however we can confirm that a British citizen has been deported from Turkey to the UK.
Davis had spent the previous seven years incarcerated in Ankara, the nation’s capital, before being expelled.
He visited the Middle East in 2013, was apprehended by Turkish officials in Istanbul in November 2015, and was found guilty in 2017 of belonging to the terrorist organisation ISIS.
According to reports from last month, Turkey wants to send the man back to the UK after his term is over because it doesn’t want to serve as a “dumping ground” for Western terrorists.