British IS members say hostage beheadings a ‘mistake’
KOBANI, Syria — Two British militants believed to have been part of an Islamic State group cell notorious for beheading hostages in Syria were unapologetic in their first interview since their capture, denouncing the U.S. and Britain as “hypocrites” who will not give them a fair trial.
The men, along with two other British jihadis, allegedly made up the IS cell nicknamed “The Beatles” by surviving captives because of their English accents.
The nickname belied the cell’s brutality. In 2014 and 2015, it held more than 20 Western hostages in Syria and tortured many of them. It beheaded seven American, British and Japanese journalists and aid workers and a group of Syrian soldiers, boasting of the butchery in videos released to the world.
Speaking to The Associated Press at a Kurdish security centre, the two men, El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Amon Kotey, repeatedly refused to address allegations they were part of the cell – clearly having a future trial in mind. They complained that they could “disappear” after Britain reportedly revoked their citizenship.
They were captured in January in eastern Syria by the Kurdishled, U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces amid the collapse of IS. Their detention has set off a debate in the U.S. and Europe over how to prosecute their citizens who joined IS – as the Kurds pressure the West to take them back to relieve overcrowding in prisons.
The two said the killings of the captives were a mistake – but for tactical reasons.
Many in IS “would have disagreed” with the killings “on the grounds that there is probably more benefit in them being political prisoners,” Kotey said.
“I didn’t see any benefit (in killing them). It was something that was regrettable.” He also blamed Western governments for failing to negotiate, noting that some hostages were released for ransoms.
Elsheikh said the killings were a “mistake” and might not have been justified. But, he said, they were in retaliation for killings of civilians by the U.S.-led coalition fighting IS. He said the militants shouldn’t have initially threatened to kill the hostages because then they had to go ahead with it or else “your credibility may go.”
The beheadings, often carried out on camera, horrified the world soon after IS took over much of Iraq and Syria in 2014. The group also committed wide-scale atrocities including massacring thousands of Iraqi troops and civilians and taking sex slaves.
The first victim was American journalist James Foley, followed by fellow Americans Steven Sotloff and Peter Kassig, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning and Japanese journalists Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto.
Speaking to the AP on Friday, Foley’s mother, Diane Foley, called on the international community and U.S. government “to have the courage to hold these men accountable in an open trial where we can face them and they can hear all the pain and suffering they’ve inflicted on the world. And so that the rest of the world can understand the atrocity of their crimes.”
She said she opposes the death penalty for them since it feeds jihadi “desire for martyrdom and heroic afterlife.”
“These men do not deserve that. They deserve to be held in solitary confinement for the rest of their lives.”
Elsheikh, whose family came to Britain from Sudan when he was a child, was a mechanic from White City in west London.
He travelled to Syria in 2012, initially joining al-Qaida’s branch before moving on to IS, according to the U.S. State Department’s listing of the two men for terrorism sanctions. It said he “earned a reputation for waterboarding, mock executions and crucifixions while serving as an (IS) jailer.”
Kotey, who is of Ghanaian and Greek-Cypriot descent and converted to Islam in his 20s, is from London’s Paddington neighbourhood.
Serving in the IS cell as a guard, he “likely engaged in the group’s executions and exceptionally cruel torture methods,” the State Department said. It also said he was an IS recruiter who brought other Britons into the group.