British rapper believed to be ISIS killer found dead in Spanish prison cell

A former UK rapper once believed to be an ISIS killer has been found dead in his prison cell in Spain while awaiting a verdict on terror charges. Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, 32, appeared in court in Madrid earlier this month on suspicion of heading an itinerant jihadist cell he allegedly formed after leaving Syria.

Bary was previously 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.

Bary 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. Bary was born in Egypt and attended a school in London before being stripped of his British citizenship after allegedly joining ISIS.

He 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. During the trial, Barr 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.

In a pre-trial indictment, prosecutors said the former British national 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 credit card fraud.

Bary is understood to have been found dead at a prison in El Puerto de Santa Maria in Cadiz, south west Spain. 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.