A British rapper once thought to be the ISIS killer known as “Jihadi John” has been found dead in a Spanish prison cell.

Mystery surrounds Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary’s death as he was awaiting the verdict on terror charges. The 32-year-old’s body was discovered by prison guards at El Puerto III Prison in Puerto de Santa Maria in Cadiz.

Earlier this month he had been tried in Madrid on terror charges. He was accused of heading an itinerant jihadist cell he allegedly formed in Syria.

He was awaiting the verdict. He was arrested with two men described as aides less than a week after they were smuggled onto a beach on Spain’s southeast coastline in April 2020.

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The London-schooled Egyptian national was stripped of his British nationality after reportedly joining ISIS. He was eventually charged after a long-running arrest sparked when he was arrested at his hideaway 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.

When appearing before Madrid’s Audiencia Nacional court, he was told he could face up to nine years behind bars if convicted of terror charges. His trial finished on July 14.

On the opening day of his trial, he 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.

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He also denied being pictured holding a decapitated head in Raqqa in 2014. It came after pictures emerged on social media showing a man holding a head with the caption: “Chillin’ with my homie or what’s left of him”.

Prosecutors said Abdel Bary used bitcoin to buy stolen or cloned bank cards on the Dark Web. 

An internal Spanish Prison service investigation will now take place and his family given the right to hold their own autopsy. An official post-mortem will also take place to establish and official cause of death.

A separate probe will be carried out by a court in the town of El Puerto de Santa Maria. 

Abdel Bary claimed to be a Syrian national called Ahmed Mohamed Al Oulabi when he was held in Almeria in April 2020. Reports at the time suggest he was arrested after police spotters identified him by his ears as he left his second floor flat to receive a kebab from an Uber Eats driver.

Abdel Bary emerged as a key suspect in the manhunt for the executioner known as Jihadi John. The fighter was filmed putting a knife to American journalist James Foley’s throat before boasting of having carried out his beheading.

The executioner was subsequently named as Londoner Mohammed Emwazi in February 2015.

His Egyptian father Adel Abdel Bary was suspected of being involved in al-Qaeda bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and was extradited to America in 2012.

When he was six, the rapper moved to London from Egypt after his dad was released from prison. The family applied for political asylum.

In 2013, he walked out of his family home, saying he was “leaving everything for the sake of Allah”. Before leaving Britain and becoming radicalised, some of his music was played on Radio 1.

He was also previously identified as being a possible member of the group of four terrorists known as The Beatles because of their British accents. They are said to have guarded, tortured, and beheaded foreign hostages, reports the Sun.

One Spanish report has suggested Abdel Bary was intending to return to the UK when the coronavirus lockdown was over. But respected Almeria-based daily Ideal reported at the time of his arrest that he picked Almeria as a Plan B hideout after the onset of the Covid-19 crisis and lockdown scuppered his initial plans to reach Catalonia.

A Spanish National Police spokesman said at the time of Abdel Bary’s detention: “National Police officers have developed a counter-terrorism operation which has culminated in the arrest in Almeria of one of the most wanted Daesh Foreign Terrorist Fighters in Europe.

“Another two people have been arrested and the authorities are currently working to establish their identity and their relationship with the other man.”

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