27/07/23
British rapper-turned Jihadi Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, 32, who was long thought to be one of the ISIS Beatles is found dead in his Spanish prison cell while awaiting a verdict on terror charges
A former British rapper once believed to be the ISIS killer 'Jihadi' John has been found dead in his prison cell in Spain.
Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, 32, had been tried earlier this month at a court in Madrid on suspicion of heading an itinerant jihadist cell he allegedly formed after leaving Syria, and was awaiting the verdict.
He is understood to have been found dead at a prison in El Puerto de Santa Maria in Cadiz, south west Spain. One unconfirmed local report said his body presented no obvious signs of any violence.
An internal Spanish Prison service investigation will now take place and his family will be given the right to hold their own autopsy aside from the official post-mortem to establish the exact cause of death.
A separate probe will be carried out by a court in the town of El Puerto de Santa Maria.
He was arrested with two men described as aides less than a week after they were smuggled onto a beach on Spain's south-east coastline in April 2020.
Abdel Bary was born in Egypt but schooled in London. He was stripped of his British citizenship after allegedly joining ISIS and was charged after a long-running investigation sparked by his arrest at a hideaway rented flat in Almeria.
Investigating judge Maria Tardon concluded in her written ruling outlining her decision to charge him that he had been smuggled into Spain by boat with two Algerian men less than a week before he was located and held.
He was warned before his trial at Madrid's Audiencia Nacional court, which finished on July 14, he could face nine years in prison if convicted.
On the opening day of his trial he denied all terrorism charges against him, insisting he had never been in the Syrian city of Raqqa before claiming he went to the country for humanitarian reasons.
Prosecutors said in a pre-trial indictment that the former British national, the son of Adel Abdel Bari who confessed to murdering more than 200 people in a series of Islamist bombings in Africa, used bitcoin to buy stolen or cloned bank cards on the Dark Web.
His alleged accomplices, named before the trial as Abderrazak Seddiki, 30, and Kossaila Chollouah, 27 were accused in a pre-trial indictment of playing other key roles in the fraud including carding which is a type of credit card scam in which a criminal steals or fraudulently uses credit card details to buy prepaid gift cards.
He was alleged to have posted an image of himself holding a severed head on Twitter.
He was accused of posing for a photo with the head in the Syrian city of Raqqa with the caption 'Chillin' with my homie or what's left of him' in August 2014.
The alleged terrorist, who at his trial showed he had put on considerable weight since his arrest, denied it was him with the severed head.
Insisting he and his family had lived in the UK for more than 30 years and completely adopted a Western lifestyle, Abdel Bary told the court trying him: 'Al Qaeda and all the radical extremists… I hate them. I don't agree with their ideology or actions.'
Abdel Bary claimed to be a Syrian national called Ahmed Mohamed Al Oulabi when he was held in Almeria in April 2020.
Reports at the time said he was arrested after police spotters identified him by his ears when he opened a second-floor door to receive a kebab takeout from an Uber Eats kebab delivery man.
Abdel Bary emerged as a key suspect in the hunt for the man dubbed Jihadi John filmed putting a knife to American journalist James Foley's throat before boasting of having carried out his beheading.
The executioner was subsequently named as Londoner Mohammed Emwazi in February 2015.
He moved to London from Egypt as a six-year-old after his dad was released from prison and applied for political asylum with his wife and family.
Before becoming radicalised and leaving Britain Abdel Bary made a name for himself as a rapper and some of his music was played on Radio 1.
He has previously been identified as a possible member of a group of four Islamic terrorists known as 'The Beatles' because of their British accents, who guarded, tortured and beheaded foreign hostages in Syria.
One Spanish report has suggested Abdel Bary was intending to return to the UK when coronavirus lockdown was over.
But respected Almeria-based daily Ideal reported at the time of his arrest he picked Almeria as a 'Plan B' hideout after the onset of the Covid-19 crisis and lockdown scuppered his initial plans to reach Catalonia.
Barcelona has a large and well-integrated Muslim community but has been identified in the past as a hotbed for Islamic radicals.
A Spanish National Police spokesman said at the time of Abdel Bary's detention: 'National Police officers have developed a counter-terrorism operation which has culminated in the arrest in Almeria of one of the most wanted Daesh Foreign Terrorist Fighters in Europe.
'Another two people have been arrested and the authorities are currently working to establish their identity and their relationship with the other man.'
As well as membership of a criminal organisation he was also charged with fraud.
Abdel Bary was found dead at El Puerto III Prison in Puerto de Santa Maria this morning.
Prison guards are said to have discovered his lifeless body after he failed to answer a wake-up call.
He had returned to the prison after his trial in Madrid where he spent several days in a local jail.
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