Former British rapper and notorious Islamic State suspect, Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, has denied all terrorism charges against him as he went on trial in Madrid on Wednesday, July 12.
The 32-year-old, dubbed one of ISIS’ ‘most wanted foreign terrorist fighters’, is alleged to have posted an image of himself holding a severed head on Twitter.
He was arrested in Almeria, Spain in April 2020 and currently faces trial for allegedly joining the Islamic State group while visiting Syria between 2013 and 2015.
Bary is accused of posing for a photo with a severed head in Raqqa, Syria with the caption ‘Chillin’ with my homie or what’s left of him’ in August 2014.
Prosecutors also say he ran ‘online scams’ with two friends to fund ‘terrorist activities’, and are calling for a nine-year jail sentence.
But the West London former rapper said he hates extremists and went to Syria for ‘humanitarian reasons’.
Standing in court, Bary, who has put on considerable weight since his arrest three years ago, denied all the charges against him.
‘I find it absurd that (the prosecution is saying) I’m one of the foreign terrorist fighters,’ he told the court.
Bary was seen wearing a patterned short-sleeved shirt, black jeans, and dark-framed glasses, his mostly-shaved head topped by a ponytail.
‘Al Qaeda and all the radical extremists… I hate them. I don’t agree with their ideology or their actions,’ he said, in a mix of Spanish and English.
He also denied owning any Twitter accounts that promoted IS, saying he went to Syria ‘for humanitarian reasons’.
Bary also denied ever visiting Raqqa, saying it was not him in the photo with the severed head.
The former rapper snuck into Spain by boat in 2020 by posing as an undocumented migrant, it was claimed at the time.
Spanish state broadcaster TVE said he reached Almeria in a patera, the wooden boats Africans traditionally use to reach Europe from as far afield as Senegal.
Another unconfirmed report in national Spanish newspaper La Razon claimed he was intending to return to the UK as soon as possible before his arrest.
Bary is the son of Adel Abdel Bary, an Egyptian who in 2015 was jailed for 25 years by a US court for his involvement in the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
The attacks killed 224 and wounded 5,000 others.
