A Briton who converted to Islam in The Gambia was on Monday jailed for eight years for a string of terror offenses including possession of a firearm and funding terrorism. British spies once believed that Aine Davis, also known as Aine Rodrigues, was the fourth member of the ISIS ‘Beatles’, a group of British jihadists who tortured and killed hostages in Syria.
Now 39, Davis was born in Britain but sent back to The Gambia by his father – who was nicknamed Benno – when he was five, to live with his grandmother. He converted to Islam in Gambia, when he was 15, later adopting the name Hamza.
On a visit to Britain at the age of 17, Davis decided he did not want to return to Gambia. He worked only sporadically, taking a job on the London Underground in 2006 and 2007 and later for an internet company.
Aine Davis had two boys with one partner and two more with another lady, Amal El-Wahabi, who he met at Acklam Road mosque in West London in 2006. The youngest child was a month old when Aine Davis left for Syria.
ISIS Beatles route
In November 2007, Davis and el-Wahabi travelled to Dubai where Davis tried to get a job teaching English and then went on the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Davis made another trip to Saudi Arabia and then returned to Yemen to complete his language course, travelling on to Egypt, Qatar and Yemen again.
Davis left Britain on February 17. 2012 on the Eurostar, through the Channel Tunnel, with Alexanda Kotey, who went on to become one of the key members of the Beatles kidnap gang. and two other friends.
He entered Syria and was picked up in Kafar Takharim, Northern Syria, by a friend using the name, Abu Saeed.
In Syria, Davis dropped the name Hamza and adopted a new alias, Abu Ayoub, basing himself initially in Atmeh, according to reports, which was controlled by the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra. After joining ISIS, Davis later sent a group photograph with 13 other people holding guns aloft. British Intelligence linked his presence to that of the famous Jihadi John.
But in 2015, Mohammed Emwazi, aka Jihadi John, the ringleader of the murderous Beatles IS cell, is killed in a US drone strike. Davis and others were arrested in Istanbul in November of that year by the Turkish authorities on suspicion of being members of an armed terrorist group, namely the so-called Islamic State.
In 2017, he is convicted in Turkey and sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison. A year later, two of Davies IS Beatles cell members, Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, are captured in Syria. They are later handed eight life sentences in the United States.
Davis is then visited in his Turkish prison by a British intelligence officer who asked him about The Beatles. In 2022, an extradition of Davis was pronounced for Davis was was sent to UK where he was sentenced on Monday.
