Newly identified ISIS executioner joined Gaza aid convoy in 2009

A second member of a British group of Islamic State militants dubbed "the Beatles" has been identified as 32-year-old Londoner Alexanda Kotey, according to a Washington Post and BuzzFeed investigation published on Sunday.

Former hostages of the Islamic State group have reported that the team of executioners, whose leader Mohammed Emwazi gained notoriety for appearing in videos showing the murders of Western hostages, were assigned to guard foreign prisoners, and were nicknamed "the Beatles" due to their English accents.

Londoner Emwazi, referred to by British media as "Jihadi John," is believed to have been killed in a U.S. drone strike last year.

The Washington Post and BuzzFeed said Kotey was a soccer fan who had grown up in West London and converted to Islam in his early 20s, after meeting a Muslim woman with whom he had two children. He had attended the same mosque as Emwazi, they reported.

Kotey has a Greek Cypriot mother and Ghanaian father.

In 2009, Kotey left the U.K. as part of a convoy to support Hamas in Gaza led by then-MP George Galloway. The so-called "Viva Palestina" initiative was a convoy of dozens of vehicles, laden with various types of aid, intended for use in Gaza. Kotey reportedly traveled to the Middle East with the convoy and never returned.

Today, Galloway is running as a candidate in the London mayoral election.

The Guardian quoted Galloway as saying he did not know Kotey.

"I have never heard of him until today," he said. "It would appear he was on the list [for the Gaza convoy]. Having looked at his picture, I do not recognize him. ISIS did not exist when we took the convoy."

Another west Londoner, Aine Davis, 31, has also been confirmed as part of the cell, the Guardian reported Sunday. Emwazi, Kotey and Davis, a former drug dealer who went to Syria in 2013, were friends in west London and attended the same mosque.

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