A suspected British associate of the Islamic State murderer Mohammed Emwazi is being held by authorities in Turkey, senior officials from the country have said.
Reuters and Associated Press news agencies quoted unnamed officials on Friday as saying the man, believed to be Aine Lesley Davis, was being held in Istanbul.
They declined to give further details, saying that investigations by the police and intelligence agencies were continuing. Authorities were still investigating to confirm the identity of the man in custody, said an official who wished to remain anonymous.
The reports came as the Pentagon declared it was “reasonably certain” that Emwazi, also known Jihadi John and believed to be responsible for the deaths of several hostages, had been killed in an air strike in the Syrian city Raqqa on Thursday.
Davis is reported to be one of a group of British Islamists assigned to guard foreign prisoners in Syria. Hostages gave their captors the names John, Paul and Ringo after the Beatles because of their British accents.
A year ago Davis’s wife, Amal El-Wahabi, became the first person to be convicted of funding jihadi fighters in Syria and was jailed for two years. She tricked her schoolfriend, Nawal Msaad, into carrying €20,000 (£15,830) in cash to Turkey, intended for Davis, a former drug dealer who went to fight in Syria in 2013. The plan fell apart when Msaad was stopped at Heathrow airport and the notes were discovered.
Sentencing El-Wahabi at the Old Bailey in November last year, Nicholas Hilliard QC said he was sure she knew her husband was “engaged in violence with guns for extremist religious and ideological reasons” in Syria and that she was aware the money she was sending him was to fund those activities.
On Friday, the Pentagon spokesman Steve Warren said that while the US was confident the strike carried out against the vehicle believed to be carrying Emwazi had been successful, he could not offer definitive confirmation of his death. The White House’s press secretary Josh Earnest said he could not pre-empt the Pentagon in doing so and David Cameron said he too was unable to confirm that Emwazi was dead.
UK-based Syrian rights activists said they believed three other people were in the vehicle and that all died in the strike.
