RADICALISED IN JUST 17 DAYS Beheadings, electrocutions, crucifixions... reign of London jihadis known as the Beatles
CHRISTIAN WHO WAGED JIHAD
AS A boy, Alexanda Kotey’s twin passions were football and Christianity.
Twenty years later, he became a member of the feared Islamic State execution call nicknamed ‘The Beatles’.
Known as Ringo, he was placed on a ‘most wanted kill list’ by the US State Department, which said he ‘ engaged in executions and exceptionally cruel torture methods, including electronic shock and waterboarding’. The cell beheaded more than 27 hostages and tortured many more.
Kotey, who was born in London and is of Ghanaian and Cypriot heritage, also acted as an IS recruiter and was responsible for luring UK nationals to Syria.
His path towards radicalism began in his early 20s when he converted to Islam. He grew a beard and adopted an Islamic name and wore traditional robes.
He fell in love with a Muslim woman, with whom he had two children. He later abandoned his family to wage jihad.
The terrorist attended the alManaar mosque in Ladbroke Grove, west London, where religious leaders became concerned about his extremist views.
Mosque elders accused Kotey, 34, of attempting a ‘takeover’, after he demanded they discuss UK foreign policy. He was thrown out after holding private classes bent on radicalism with Mohammed Emwazi and Aine Davis, who would later be members of ‘The Beatles’.
A former friend said: ‘He had this stall outside the mosque, and those guys used to openly preach and argue about what they thought was their cause or ideology.’
Kotey travelled to Gaza as part of an aid convoy in 2009. He has not returned to the UK since.
Born in Westminster in 1983, he was brought up by parents Jonathan, who is from Ghana, and Christina, a counsellor from Cyprus. He grew up in Shepherd’s Bush with older brother Pablo, 38, and dutifully listened to sermons every Sunday with his family at a Greek orthodox church. In his free time, he was often spotted flicking through football magazines looking for stories about his beloved Queens Park Rangers.
Neighbours described Kotey as a ‘quiet and humble’ and ‘ nice, polite and well-spoken’.
One said: ‘They always seemed like really hardworking people. They were definitely not into all of that extremism.’ EL SHAFEE ELSHEIKH worked as a part-time fairground mechanic while he was studying to become an engineer.
But he cast aside his career ambitions to wage jihad after being radicalised in just 17 days.
The 29-year- old was dubbed a ‘specially designated global terrorist’ by the US State Department after joining ‘ The Beatles’, and was nicknamed George. ‘Elsheikh was said to have earned
a reputation for waterboarding, mock executions, and crucifixions,’ a spokesman said.
Born in Sudan, Elsheikh was five when he was taken to Britain by his parents to escape persecution because they were communists. He grew up with his mother and two other brothers in White City – close to the homes of the other three members of ‘The Beatles’. When he was 11, he joined the Army Cadet Force and spent three years with the organisation.
His mother Maha Elgizouli tried to shield her boys from trouble, but in 2008, the eldest Khalid was arrested with two others on charges of killing a gang member involved in a dispute with Elsheikh. He was convicted of possessing a firearm and sentenced to ten years in prison. ‘The brothers loved each other very much, they were very close,’ a close family friend said. ‘When Khalid went to prison, both of them were lost. They were vulnerable to radicalisation.’
Elsheikh, who studied mechanical engineering at Acton College in West London, was radicalised after listening to CDs by hate preacher Hani al-Sibai and attending radical sermons at a local mosque.
He suddenly began wearing Islamic robes, grew out his beard and started arguing with his mother about religion.
Elsheikh fled to Syria in 2012 where he had two children with two wives. He also lured his impressionable younger brother Mahmoud to join him in Raqqa. His brother died fighting for IS in Iraq in 2015 at the age of 17.
When she found out what had happened, Mrs Elgizouli said: ‘My kids were perfect... And one day it suddenly happened.’ Asked about Elsheikh, she said: ‘That boy now is not my son. ‘That is not the son I raised.’ His father, Rashid Sidahmed Elsheikh, a translator in London, said the UK had not taken the threat of radicalisation seriously enough. ‘Unfortunately the lenient way of our government here in tackling the radicalisation machinery in the mosques was complacent,’ he said, adding: ‘We tried to handle this in a mild, considerate way, but before we could do anything, he (his son) just left.’
THE MOST SAVAGE BEATLE
MOHAMMED EMWAZI was the most savage member of ‘ The Beatles’. Infamously known as Jihadi John, he slit the throats of his victims – including Britons Alan Henning and David Haines – on camera.
Emwazi’s killing at the age of 27 in a targeted drone strike in Raqqa in 2015 provided summary justice for the families of his victims.
He arrived in Britain aged six when his Kuwaiti parents chose to emigrate and settled in North London.
Despite being identified as part of a network of extremists and petty criminals known as the ‘London Boys’, Emwazi slipped out of Britain in 2013 and travelled to Syria. He made his first public appearance in 2014 when he murdered James Foley, a young American journalist. His father, Jassem Emwazi, said: ‘He is a dog, an animal and a terrorist.’
THE TERROR MASTERMIND
MUSLIM convert Aine Davis is suspected of being the mastermind of a terrorist cell plotting a simultaneous attack to the November 2015 Paris atrocities.
Davis, 36, and other members of a Turkish cell exchanged messages about conducting simultaneous strikes in Istanbul. The attacks were averted when the Islamist was arrested during raids in the city.
Davis, a former driver and drug dealer from west London who went to join IS in late 2013, was jailed for seven-and-a-half years in Turkey last year after he was caught sneaking into the country from Syria. Nicknamed Paul, he is the only member of ‘The Beatles’ gang who is in prison.
Davis was responsible for guarding The Beatles’ prisoners.