Islamic State ‘Beatles’ admit role in hostages’ mistreatment
TWO British jihadists who were part of the Islamic State “Beatles” quartet have for the first time admitted their involvement in the mistreatment of Western hostages, including Kayla Mueller, the American aid worker.
Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh said they were “liaisons” to Western hostages who were tortured and killed in Syria, among them Ms Mueller, who the US State Department believes was repeatedly raped by Abu Bakr al-baghdadi, the then IS leader.
“I took an email from her myself,” Elsheikh, 32, said in an interview obtained by NBC and published yesterday. “She was alone, I saw she was very scared.”
“She was in a room by herself that no one would go in,” the 36-year-old Kotey said.
The two men previously denied ever meeting Ms Mueller, whom IS held for 18 months before her death in 2015.
“Who? Remind me,” Elsheikh said when asked by the BBC in 2018 if he had met the aid worker.
“Didn’t meet any foreign non-muslims,” Kotey said.
The pair, who were captured in Syria in 2018 by Kurdish fighters, now admit to having beaten Western hostages, who nicknamed their captors the “Beatles” because of their British accents. “I never denied that they was ever hit,”
Kotey said. After previously declining to talk about their role in the “Beatles”, the men said they acted as “liaisons” between the hostages and their families, demanding millions of dollars in ransom payments.
The pair are currently in legal limbo, held in Iraq by American forces, who are seeking to prosecute them in a US court. The two were stripped of their British citizenship but in March the Supreme Court ruled that evidence gathered by British investigators should only be admitted to a US trial if the death penalty is not sought.
US and British authorities agree that the “Beatles” were responsible for 27 killings, including the beheadings of David Haines and Alan Henning, British aid workers, and Americans James Foley, Steven Sotloff and Peter Kassig.
Mohammed Emwazi, the gang’s ringleader – dubbed Jihadhi John – was killed in an airstrike in Syria in 2015. A fourth member, Aine Davis, a British Muslim convert, was jailed in Turkey on terrorism charges.
The families of the murdered American hostages believe prosecuting Kotey and Elsheikh in the US is their best chance for justice.
“Like any grieving relatives, we want to know the full truth about what happened to our loved ones, and we want to see our children’s murderers held accountable,” they wrote in The Washington Post yesterday. “These things can happen only if the suspects are put on trial before a jury in an American court of law.”
Ms Mueller’s parents fear the two men will receive a lenient sentence if the UK prosecutes them. “I don’t think anything should be taken off the table,” Marsha Mueller told NBC, referring to capital punishment.
According to the US State Department, Kotey probably “engaged in the group’s executions and exceptionally cruel torture methods, including electronic shock and waterboarding”.
He also acted as an IS recruiter, responsible for several other UK nationals joining the terrorist group, it said.
Elsheikh travelled to Syria in 2012 and joined al-qaeda before switching allegiance to IS. The US State Department said Elsheikh “earned a reputation for waterboarding, mock executions and crucifixions while serving as an IS jailer”.
The pair still deny these allegations but Ms Mueller’s parents believe the men did worse than what they now admit to. Investigators working with the Mueller family also believe the pair know more than they have let on and could provide details about the whereabouts of Ms Mueller’s body, which – like the other victims of the “Beatles” – has not been discovered.
“They’re admitting that they were there,” her father, Carl Mueller, told NBC. “Of course they’re not going to tell the dark side of the story.”