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British jihadi admits being member of Beatles ISIS cell for first time

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British jihadi admits being member of Beatles ISIS cell for first time

A British ISIS member has admitted being part of a cell known as The Beatles for the first time and apologised for his actions from the jail where he is being held in Syria.

El Shafee Elsheikh, who was born in Sudan but grew up in London, confessed to helping the terror group ransom western captives back to their families.

Elsheikh, known as George, spoke alongside Alexanda Kotey, known as Ringo, another British ISIS fighter, who repeated a confession that he gave last month in which he said he was also in the Beatles and had helped ransom westerners.

The pair are both accused of torturing their captives and Elsheikh is said to have earned a reputation for water-boarding and mock executions, but has denied the murder of hostages.

El Shafee Elsheikh has admitted being a member of the ISIS cell known as The Beatles for the first time, and described his job as being to ransom western hostages back to their families

Elsheikh’s confession mirrors that of ISIS cellmate and fellow Beatles member Alexanda Kotey (left) who described himself as a ‘fighter’ who helped to ransom prisoners

Elsheikh also offered an apology for his time in ISIS, admitting that joining the terror group was ‘a mistake’ and he now wants this part of his life ‘to be over’ 

Both men spoke to CNN from the jail in northern Syria where they have been held by Syrian Democratic forces since being captured in January 2018.

While the pair joked and smiled in early interviews, they cut a very different figure in the latest dispatch – heads bowed, eyes lowered and speaking in quiet voices. 

‘I consider my role in this whole scenario, this whole episode as one of my mistakes that I would like to apologise for,’ Elsheikh said.

‘[To] everybody involved and everybody who was affected, directly or indirectly.’

Asked why he was offering an apology and confession now, after denying his role in ISIS for so long, Elsheikh added: ‘I just want this period to be over. 

‘I know what needs to be done. The truth has to come out.’

Pressed whether he was trying to avoid extradition to the US where he could face the death penalty for the murders of James Foley, Pete Kassig and Steven Sotloff, Elsheikh said it is unlikely anything he says will stop him being taken to America. 

He continued to deny having anything to do with the deaths of the three men – or any of the other 27 westerners though to have been killed by The Beatles, including Britons Alan Henning and David Haines.

Elsheikh and Kotey also deny torturing western ISIS prisoners, contradicting accounts that their former captives have given since they were freed.

Kotey gave a separate interview last month in which he made a similar confession to Elsheikh and admitted trying to organise terror attacks in Britain from Syria 

Elsheikh’s confession mirrors that of cellmate Kotey, who gave an interview to ITV back in May in which he acknowledged being an ISIS member for the first time. 

Kotey admitted funnelling cash back to UK extremists and helping to arrange a firearm for an attack that would have been carried out in Shepherd’s Bush – where he was raised – but said he was not told details of the plot.

Alongside fellow British terrorist Mohammed Emwazi, better known as ‘Jihadi John’, Koey confessed to being an ISIS ‘hostage keeper’ in Syria.

Their job, he said, was to extract information from prisoners.

Discussing his role with Emwazi he said the Londoners had  joined Islamic State in Idlib as regular fighters in 2012. 

Following an ‘order from above’ they were relocated to Aleppo, where there were more Western prisoners, he said. 

‘When that order came for [Emwazi] to move to the countryside he requested that we accompany him,’ he said. 

‘They were more in number [the prisoners] ,they had gathered them in one place, different nationalities, varying nationalities.

‘[At] this point it was instructed to extract email addresses from them to open up communication. 

Kotey has also acknowledged his contacts with fellow British terrorist Mohammed Emwazi, the ISIS killer nicknamed ‘Jihadi John’ (pictured)

‘This was mostly before, in the time of Idlib – the time of Aleppo there wasn’t really that kind of interaction between myself and the prisoners.

‘It was go and take the necessary information and leave,’ he said.

Despite admitting his association with Emwazi, known for carrying out several filmed beheadings, Kotey denied any involvement with those killings.

‘I don’t see in my case it makes a very big difference if I was actually there or not there,’ he said.

However U.S. officials said Kotey and fellow ‘Beatle’ El Shafee Elsheikh ‘are suspected to have participated in the detention, exploitation and execution of Western detainees’.  

Kotey is under guard in the caliphate’s former heartland having fallen into the hands of Kurdish militia fighters in January. 

Emwazi was killed in a US air strike in 2015 after appearing in a number of videos in which captives including British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning were beheaded. 

The fourth gang member, Aine Davis, was convicted of being a member of a terrorist organisation and jailed in Turkey in May 2017. 

The four Londoners were linked to a string of hostage murders in Iraq and Syria during the bloody Islamist uprising and gained global notoriety.

Two further men were jailed for life over the Shepherd’s Bush terror plot in 2016. 

Tarik Hassane and Suhaib Majeed were imprisoned at the Old Bailey for conspiracy to murder and preparation of terrorist acts. 

Hassane had identified Shepherd’s Bush police station and the Parachute Regiment Territorial Army Barracks at White City as possible targets on Google Street View.

Mohammed Emwazi (left), also known as Jihadi John, and Aine Davis (right), who was jailed in 2017 in Turkey have been confirmed as the other two members of The Beatles

The judge told the pair: ‘It is shocking, tragic and deplorable that you, two young British men, educated through the UK school system, undertaking university courses, should be so influenced by the bloodthirsty version of Islam presented by Isis and other similarly minded groups, that you decided to take up arms against your fellow British citizens and those charged with protecting them in the streets of your own city.’   

Prosecutor Brian Altman QC had said Hassane and Majeed were heavily influenced by the rise of Islamic State, which pronounced a caliphate in June 2014.

Within days, Hassane pledged his allegiance to IS and encouraged his friends to follow suit. He was pictured posing with a gun in one hand and a book on Osama bin Laden in the other.

His close friend Majeed was studying at the prestigious King’s College London and was chairman of its Islamic society.

The court heard that Majeed sent a picture of a dead fighter ‘laughing’ to a Telegram chat group named Turnup Terror Squad, of which Hassane was also a member.

And he had a ‘grim’ video of Jihadi John beheading a journalist on his iPad, jurors were told.  

Acting on instructions from mastermind Tarik Hassane, physics student Majeed had got his hands on a gun and ammunition and was discussing buying an untraceable moped before police swooped to arrest him in September 2014.

His old school friend Hassane, nicknamed The Surgeon, was studying medicine in Sudan at the time but rushed back to London to carry on as a ‘lone wolf terrorist’ before he too was picked up. 

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