IS Beatles ‘won’t face execution in US’

AMERICA will drop the threat of executing the British IS suspects known as the Beatles so it can finally put them on trial, Washington told the UK last night.

US Attorney General William Barr reportedly confirmed in a letter to the British government that he is willing to drop the threat of the death penalty in the case of the two jihadis.

Prosecutors in America had initially planned to seek the pair’s execution. The British government wanted them prosecuted in the US, where it is thought there is a more realistic chance of conviction.

But the Supreme Court here this year ruled that Britain could not provide assistance to US investigators when the threat of death hung over the two.

The American offer is a way round the impasse. However, according to security publication DefenseOne, Mr Barr set a two-month deadline for the transfer of evidence from Britain to begin or the pair – El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey – will face Iraqi justice. If handed over to Iraq, they will face certain death.

Hundreds of suspected IS gunmen have already been through the court system in Iraq, where they are sentenced to hang after five-minute hearings.

The US Department of Justice has come under pressure from the Pentagon to get the pair into a courtroom.

Kotey and Elsheikh, both from London but stripped of their British citizenship, were captured in January 2018. They are accused of belonging to a fourman execution cell in Syria named after the Beatles by their captives. Among those the group is accused of killing were British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning.

Ministers here are likely to come under pressure to secure legal guidance that would now let them hand over evidence.