An Islamic State terrorist from London was unmasked as part of the crew led by Jihadi John and nicknamed the Beatles, reports revealed Monday.
Sources confirmed former Londoners Alexanda (Alexe) Kotey, 32, and Aine Davis, 31, have links to the beheading of western prisoners and the Paris attacks, The Guardian newspaper reported.
Davis’ name surfaced as part of the murderous band noted for their British accents and brutality months before his arrest in connection with the Paris massacre.
Yet BuzzFeed News and The Washington Post named Kotey on Sunday while tracing his path to Syria from west London by way of an aid trip to the Gaza Strip in 2009. Neither British nor American officials have confirmed Kotey and Davis’ identities, and Kotey is still at large.
Jihadi John – another west Londoner whose real name was Mohammed Emwazi – died in an American airstrike in November after gaining notoriety through ISIS’ videos. Emwazi’s crew is believed to have executed 27 people, including American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, as well as aid worker Peter Kassig, who had changed his name to Abdul-Rahman Kassig.
Neighbors of Kotey’s family recalled in interviews with BuzzFeed the half Ghanaian, half Greek-Cypriot father of two’s conversion to radical Islam. Kotey, like an ISIS terrorist who once identified himself on social media as “Ringo” in Jihadi John’s Beatles, loved the Queens Park Rangers soccer team, his family’s neighbor of 25 years said.
“I knew him since he was this big,” said Kim Everett. “He grew up with my sons. He was lovely and a really quiet boy.”
She said Kotey didn’t return to his parents’ home much after moving out but remembered hearing that he had converted to Islam when he was around 20 years old.
“The next time I saw him he was bearded, full garments,” she said.
Others said Kotey would argue in favor of suicide bombings in debates near a mosque where authorities believe he and Emwazi became radicalized. The family of Kotey, who was known as “Alexe,” told BuzzFeed in a statement they were “deeply disturbed” by the reports of his ISIS involvement.
“They have not seen Alexe for a number of years,” the statement said. “They would ask the media to respect their privacy and to desist from attempting to contact them, and not to seek to take or publish any photographs of them. They would like to make it clear they will not be commenting any further on this matter.”
British publications identified Davis and another man as possible members of the Beatles crew in September. Davis’ wife Amal el-Wahabi, 27, was convicted on terrorism charges in 2014 after prosecutors said she tried to smuggle cash to her husband, according to the Guardian. Her judge said she “knew he was engaged in violence with guns for extremist religious and ideological reasons.”
Turkish authorities told Reuters in November that Davis may have been trying to coordinate an attack in Istanbul on the same day as the Nov. 13 attacks that killed 130 people.
“Davis is a figure with key responsibilities within Islamic State and he wasn’t caught alone. He was within a group,” a source told the news agency. “Right now, we’re investigating whether they were planning an attack in Istanbul similar to the one in Paris. We suspect there could have been a parallel attack with Paris, on the same day.”
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