A former UK rapper who went to Syria to join Islamic State has been found dead in his prison cell in Spain.
Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, 32, had been tried earlier this month in Madrid on suspicion of heading a jihadist cell he formed after leaving Syria.
He was found dead on Wednesday in Puerto III prison in Cádiz where he was awaiting the trial verdict.
He was arrested with two men described as aides less than a week after they were smuggled onto a beach on Spain’s south-east coast in April 2020.
Spanish officials said it could be several months before the cause of death is known.
An initial autopsy was expected to take place on Thursday following the discovery of his body inside his prison cell in the town of Puerto de Santa Maria in south-west Spain.
Born in Egypt but brought up in London, Abdel Bary was stripped of his British citizenship after an image of him in Syria holding a severed head appeared on Twitter.
He was long suspected of being Jihadi John but Londoner Mohammed Emwazi was later named as that executioner.
Abdel Bary had been warned he faced up to nine years in prison in Spain.
He was the son of Adel Abdel Bary, who was jailed for 25 years for the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya which killed 224 people and wounded 5,000.
