UK rapper turned Islamic State fighter dies in Spanish jail | Islamic State

A man from London who was stripped of his British nationality over his links to Islamic State has died in custody in Spain.

Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, a former rapper who allegedly posed for photographs holding a severed head, was found dead in a Spanish prison on Wednesday, the interior ministry said. The cause of death is unconfirmed.

Bary was arrested in 2020, accused of heading a jihadist terror cell. He was facing up to nine years in prison. He went on trial earlier this month and was awaiting the verdict.

Bary, 32, grew up in Maida Vale but left London in 2013 to join an al-Qaida faction and later IS militias in Syria.

Previously, he performed as a rapper under the name Jinn.

He was the son of an Egyptian operative of al-Qaida who was convicted in connection with the bombings at US embassies in Africa in 1998 that killed 224 people. Bary stopped making music soon after his father’s extradition to the US on terror charges.

He left his family and five siblings for the IS stronghold of Raqqa in July 2013.

He is accused of publishing a grisly photo in August 2014 in which he can be seen posing with a severed head in the Syrian city, with the caption: “Chillin’ with my homie or what’s left of him.”

In April 2020, he was arrested with two other men in the southern town of Almería, shortly after they crossed the strait of Gibraltar on a skiff from Algeria.

At the time, Spanish police described him as one of IS’s “most-wanted foreign terrorist fighters”.

He was accused of leading a jihadist terror cell formed by him and the two other men, dedicated to committing internet banking scams and trafficking in cryptocurrencies to “finance their terrorist activities”.

Bary denied being a cell leader during the trial.