‘I’M NOT GOING TO SAY IT’S NICE TO MEET YOU BECAUSE IT’S NOT’
BRAVE MUM HAS REVEALED HOW SHE CAME FACE-TO-FACE WITH ISIS ‘BEATLES’ KILLER WHOSE GANG MURDERED HER DAD
A BRAVE mum has revealed how she came face-to-face with the ISIS “Beatles” killer whose gang murdered her dad in Syria.
David Haines, an aid worker from Holderness, East Yorkshire, was filmed by the terrorists in 2014 kneeling next to knife-brandishing Mohammed Emwazi – dubbed Jihadi John – in footage that sickened that world. His daughter Bethany Haines, a mum-of-one, vowed to meet kidnapper Alexanda Kotey where he is imprisoned in Virginia, US.
In an interview with ITV News yesterday she talks about finally speaking to 38-year-old Kotey – nicknamed Jihadi George – and trying to make him feel accountable for what he did. During the meeting, he reportedly told her: “I am sorry for kidnapping and hurting your dad” – although Bethany does not believe the apology was sincere.
Bethany tells the news station: “I’m expecting to go in there passive-aggressive, having to be assertive, answer my questions, and he is smiling, he is chatting, he is telling me things. We are having an honest, friendly conversation.
“I walked in, said hello to his lawyer, and just sat down and said, ‘I’m not going to say it’s nice to meet you because it’s not.’” Bethany said Kotey simply nodded in response.
According to ITV News, the Beatles cell member also told Bethany how her father urged his killers to “please make it quick” before he was killed on camera. Kotey, originally from London, revealed how the aid worker was tormented before his execution.
Jihadi John is said to have made him “perform” as he brushed a knife against his neck so he could film shots from multiple angles to edit his propaganda video.
Hull Live has previously reported on Bethany sending a Father’s Day letter to Kotey, explaining that because of his actions she will never see her own dad again, and neither will Kotey see his daughter due to his life sentence in the US which began after his conviction in 2021.
“I’ve been putting together notes and have 200 pages which helped piece together my dad’s days in captivity,” Bethany said previously. “I learned about tough things in the trial – like how he was water-boarded.
“Kotey was the one who held a towel over my dad’s head. It was hard to listen to. When he was sentenced I walked across the court and told him to ‘go to hell.’”
In April Kotey was jailed for life after admitting eight criminal charges relating to the abduction, torture and beheading of Islamic State hostages in Syria.
The judge said Kotey “seems to have some remorse” and had offered to meet his victims’ families. “If there is [an afterlife] maybe you can recompense there,” the judge told him.
Hostages said Kotey, El Shafee Elsheikh and Mohammed Emwazi were members of an ISIS cell they nicknamed “the Beatles” because of their British accents. Emwazi was killed in Syria in 2015. A fourth man, Aine Davis, found guilty of being a senior member of a terrorist organisation and currently jailed in Turkey, is also believed to be part of the cell.
They are thought to have resulted in the deaths of four US hostages: journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and aid workers Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig, as well as British aid workers Mr Haines and Alan Henning, and Japanese journalists Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto.