Families confront Isis killers
‘‘Please do not close your eyes,’’ Shirley Sotloff told the men who held her son captive. ‘‘Look at me.’’
Alexanda Kotey, 38, and El Shafee Elsheikh, 33, had looked away as the parents, spouses, siblings, children and friends of their victims faced them yesterday in an Alexandria, Virginia, federal courtroom.
Witnesses at the sentencing hearing described the agonising mystery of disappearances of loved ones in Syria and the awful knowledge of their torture and death at the hands of the Islamic State.
Now, two of the perpetrators met Sotloff’s gaze as she described watching her child, a freelance journalist kidnapped while reporting on Syria’s civil war, beheaded in a video that can be ‘‘replayed with a click of a button’’ and loops unceasingly in her mind.
‘‘One can mourn and eventually somewhat heal from a death in the family. But the pain of knowing what was done to him in captivity – this pain does not stop,’’ she said. ‘‘And whatever you believe God will deliver, think about his true judgment of the life you lived, and the torture and murder of innocents that you leave as your legacy.’’
Kotey admitted his role last year and agreed to share information, including directly with the victims’ families, for a chance to serve part of a life sentence, imposed yesterday, in the United
Kingdom. Elsheikh was found guilty at trial and faces a mandatory life sentence.
A third Londoner who joined the Islamic State with them, Mohammed Emwazi, died in a 2015 drone strike.
The three held as hostages journalists who had come to report on the war against Syrian President Bashar Assad, as well as aid workers helping the conflict’s refugees.
For hostages from Europe, the Islamic State negotiated ransoms. The American, British and Japanese governments refused to pay, and their citizens were killed and used as terrorist propaganda.
More than a dozen people spoke in court of sleepless nights wondering whether they had done
all they could, lies they told friends for fear of putting the hostages in danger and the gnawing lack of last moments together, or graves to visit.
Some said they forgave the kidnappers to honour love over hate; others said they could not without some sign of repentance.
James Foley, a freelance journalist from New Hampshire, was the first hostage killed on camera.
‘‘Jim would say, ‘Alexanda and El Shafee, you did not kill me’,’’ his brother Michael Foley said. ‘‘ ‘I am alive in the stories of those I have told, those heard here in this courtroom, and in the stories yet to be told. I am alive in all who aspire to have moral courage in whatever they choose to do.’’’
Steven Sotloff was killed next, followed by David Haines, a Scottish humanitarian worker. ‘‘I wake up during the night hearing my dad’s screams. I hear him begging for his life, and I can’t do anything to save him,’’ said his daughter, Bethany Haines. ‘‘I struggle to explain to my son why Mummy is sad all the time.’’
She had gone to Syria to search, without success, for his remains.
She still struggles with the idea of forgiving men who ‘‘only care about themselves’’.
Alan Henning’s daughter Lucy was 16 when her father was abducted. He had agreed to miss Christmas for an aid mission in Syria. She learned he had been killed when a photo of his body was posted to Instagram.
She said she was left with guiltloaded questions: ‘‘Did he want to send a message? Did he cry? Did he know we were trying like mad to get him out?’’ And, ‘‘If I wasn’t a moody teenager, maybe he wouldn’t have gone?’’
Peter Kassig, a former army ranger who went to Syria to set up an emergency ambulance service, died next.
‘‘They say time heals. They lie. And closure – that’s just a word they use to make the bystanders feel better,’’ said his father, Edward Kassig.
Kayla Mueller was held captive with the men. After their deaths, witnesses testified at Elsheikh’s trial, she was enslaved by Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Her mother, Marsha Mueller, described the ‘‘fear and desperation’’ leading up to the date the kidnappers gave for a ransom to be paid.
‘‘I remember that night, the eve of the deadline, wondering if our daughter was being killed at that very moment,’’ she said.
What little information she had learned increased the torment. She was told her daughter’s nails were pulled out. Later, she learned it was another woman, in the same cell. ‘‘And yet,’’ Marsha Mueller said, ‘‘I look at my own hands and think of this often.’’
Kayla Mueller was killed under unknown circumstances, and her parents said they still hoped to learn more about her death.
In a 25-page letter to the court, Kotey expressed responsibility but not remorse, framing his acts as ‘‘the cost of duty within the confines of a harsh and imbalanced war’’ against both Assad and Western powers that sought to keep the Islamic State from winning control of Syria.
That context only puts more blood on Kotey’s hands, said Mohammed Almahmoud, who was kidnapped with Kassig en route to deliver medical supplies.
The Islamic State displaced millions of Muslims, killed thousands of Syrians and ultimately strengthened the brutal Assad dictatorship.
‘‘You are exactly like the regime of Bashar al-Assad,’’ Almahmoud said. ‘‘I won’t forgive you for destroying my country, or killing my friend.’’ –