Aine Davis: Alleged fourth IS 'Beatle' arrested in UK on terror charges

Aine Davis has previously said he posed in this photo as a "joke"

A man accused of being part of a notorious Islamic State group cell which murdered hostages, has been arrested on terror charges in the UK.

Aine Davis, of west London, flew into Luton airport after his release from a Turkish jail where he was serving a seven-and-a-half-year sentence for membership of the terror group.

During his trial, Davis denied being part of the cell, nicknamed the Beatles because of members' British accents.

Davis is being held in police custody.

The 38-year-old was arrested by officers from the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command and taken to a police station in south London.

He was arrested in relation to offences under the Terrorism Act, 2000, including fundraising and possession of articles for terrorist purposes.

The 'Beatles' cell is believed to have been made up of four members - all thought to have grown up in west London - who volunteered to fight for IS in Syria and ended up guarding Western hostages.

They were nicknamed the Beatles, after the Liverpudlian band, by hostages due to their English accents.

US authorities have said the group killed 27 hostages, beheading several of them.

Videos of the murders were sent around the world, causing outrage.

Before being radicalised Davis was convicted on drugs offences and was jailed in 2006 for possessing a firearm.

After converting to Islam, he changed his name to Hamza and met Mohammed Emwazi, nicknamed Jihadi John by the media.

The two were part of a group that radicalised Muslims living in London. Davis left the UK to join IS in 2013.

Davis was arrested near Istanbul in 2015 and was convicted by a Turkish court two years later of being a senior member of a terrorist organisation.

At his trial, Davis admitted knowing Emwazi from praying in the same mosque in west London, but denied being his friend, or a member of the "IS Beatles" group.

The group's actions are said to have resulted in the deaths of four US hostages - journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and aid workers Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig - British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning and Japanese journalists Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto.

Emwazi was killed in Syria in 2015. The two other group members are in custody in the US after being captured by Kurdish forces in Syria in 2018.

Alexanda Kotey is serving a life sentence and El Shafee Elsheikh is due to be sentenced this month in the US after being convicted in April.

Kotey pleaded guilty to eight offences, including lethal hostage-taking and conspiracy to support terrorists, while Elsheikh was found guilty of charges which included lethal hostage taking and conspiracy to commit murder after a trial.

Both men were stripped of their British citizenship in 2018.