US charges IS members in deaths of hostages
Two Islamic State militants from Britain were brought to the United States on Wednesday to face charges.
WASHINGTON >> Two Islamic State militants from Britain were brought to the United States on Wednesday to face charges in a gruesome campaign of torture, beheadings and other acts of violence against four Americans and others captured and held hostage in Syria, the Justice Department said.
El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey are two of four men who were called “the Beatles” by the hostages because of the captors’ British accents. The two men made their first appearance Wednesday afternoon in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, where a federal grand jury issued an eight- count indictment that accuses them of being “leading participants in a brutal hostagetaking scheme” that resulted in the deaths of Western hostages, including American journalist James Foley.
The charges are a milestone in a yearslong effort by U.S. authorities to bring to justice members of the group known for beheadings and barbaric treatment of aid workers, journalists and other hostages in Syria. Startling for their unflinching depictions of cruelty and violence, recordings of the murders were released online in the form of propaganda for a group that at its peak controlled vast swaths of Syria and Iraq.
The case underscores the Justice Department’s commitment to prosecuting in American civilian court militants captured overseas, said Assistant Attorney General John Demers, who vowed that other extremists “will be pursued to the ends of the earth.” The defendants’ arrival in the U.S. sets the stage for arguably the most sensational terrorism trial since the 2014 criminal case against the suspected ringleader of a deadly attack on a U. S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.
“If you have American blood in your veins or American blood on your hands, you will face American justice,” said Demers, the department’s top national security official.
At a brief initial appearance Wednesday in Alexandria, Elsheikh asked questions about his legal status. Asked if he wanted to hire his own attorney or have one appointed, he said he didn’t know how to answer.
“I don’t know. I haven’t had time to consult,” he said from a video hookup at the Alexandria jail. He wore an olive green T- shirt, handcuffs, long, unruly hair and a blue surgical mask he fiddled with and eventually removed.
He later asked if he was still under military jurisdiction. “Am I under arrest?” he asked U.S. Magistrate Teresa Carroll Buchanan. He was informed that he is.