‘Beatles’ charged in deaths of hostages
Brits to face trial in U.S. for Syria video beheadings
Six years after the Islamic State beheaded American hostages on camera, two men have been charged in U.S. federal court for involvement in those deaths.
Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh were being flown Wednesday to the U. S. from Iraq, where they had been held by the U. S. military. They and their families fought for a prosecution in the United Kingdom, where the two grew up, rather than the U.S., where criminal punishment is harsher.
They will be prosecuted in federal court and are charged with hostage taking resulting in death, conspiracy to murder U. S. citizens outside the United States, conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, and related conspiracy charges.
A court in London last month cleared the way for British authorities to provide evidence they hold to U. S. law enforcement after Attorney General William Barr agreed not to seek the death penalty in exchange. If convicted, Kotey and Elsheikh could face up to life in prison.
The man who wielded the knife in infamous ISIL videos, Mohammed Emwazi, was killed in a drone strike in 2015. Like Kotey and Elsheikh, Emwazi — better known as “Jihadi John” — was raised in West London. Together with a fourth Londoner, Aine Davis, the group became known by their captives as “The Beatles” because of their British accents. Britain has stripped Kotey and Elsheikh of their citizenship.
Kotey and Elsheikh were captured in Syria by U. S.backed Kurdish forces in 2018; Davis is imprisoned in Turkey. The U. S. military took custody of the two defendants from its Kurdish allies after Turkey invaded northern Syria.
In interviews with The Washington Post and other news outlets, Elsheikh and Kotey admitted to demanding information from hostages for ransom negotiations. They said they engaged with Americans James Foley, Kayla Mueller, Steven Sotloff, Peter Kassig and other Western prisoners who were subsequently killed. But they claimed to have no involvement in or advance knowledge of those executions.
The indictment says they were directly involved in the torture of hostages and in their deaths. According to prosecutors, when Emwazi executed a Syrian prisoner, Elsheikh videotaped the slaying while Kotey told other hostages to kneel and hold handmade signs pleading for release. The indictment also says the two worked closely with Abu Muhammed al-adnani, a top strategist and chief spokesperson for ISIL until his death in 2016.
The bodies of the murdered hostages have never been found; the circumstances of Mueller’s death remain unclear. Relatives said in an editorial earlier this year that they hope a prosecution will reveal new information.