ISIS ‘BEATLE’ WHO PLEADED GUILTY TO TERRORIST CHARGES FACES SENTENCING
▶ UK-born Alexanda Kotey was one of four men who played a high-profile and murderous role in group’s rampage
One of the four men collectively known as the ISIS “Beatles”, who terrorised their captives before ultimately beheading them in the Syrian desert, is set to be sentenced in a US court.
Alexanda Kotey, 38, is one of two ISIS members who were held in Iraq by the American military before being flown to the US in 2020 to face trial on terrorism charges.
Kotey pleaded guilty to eight charges in a US District Court in Alexandria, Virginia and was expected be sentenced on Friday to life in prison.
As part of his plea deal, he will spend 15 years in US custody. If certain conditions are met, he will then be transferred to Britain to serve out the rest of his sentence.
US court documents show that the group was responsible for capturing and killing four American citizens: journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and aid workers Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig.
The charges against Kotey, and his co-accused, El Shafee Elsheikh, who was convicted this month, only feature US victims. Families of those murdered by the terrorist cell will address the judge on Friday about their collective loss.
Kotey faced charges that included hostage-taking resulting in death and conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists.
Elsheikh is expected to be sentenced in August.
The four assassins played an outsized role in ISIS and featured heavily in the terrorist group’s propaganda.
“They were used as examples of how the group could turn these western citizens against their country and against their societies,” said Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, research director at the Programme on Extremism at George Washington University.
In the summer and autumn of 2014, as ISIS terrorists stormed to power in parts of Syria and Iraq, a video showing a man with a strong London accent decapitating American hostages sent shock waves around the world.
As well as the abductions of Foley, Sotloff, Mueller and Kassig, the cell was also behind the deaths of British aid worker David Haines and two Japanese citizens, Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa.
The ringleader, Mohammed Emwazi – nicknamed Jihadi John – is thought to be the man, clad in black fatigues, who beheaded Foley and others.
Emwazi was killed by a US drone strike in Raqqa, Syria, in November 2015.
He was born in Kuwait and grew up in west London, graduating from the University of Westminster in 2009.
The group’s “Paul” was Aine Davis, a Briton with convictions for drugs and possession of a firearm.
He was arrested in Turkey in 2015. Two years later, he was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for being a member of a terrorist group.
Elsheikh was born in Sudan but grew up in London. He was captured along with the fourth member of the cell, Kotey, in January 2018 by the Syrian Democratic Forces, while fleeing the collapsing ISIS regime.
Elsheikh and Kotey were taken into American custody in Iraq and eventually brought to the US, where Elsheikh stood trial.
While in US custody, both Elsheikh and Kotey were stripped of their British citizenship by the UK.
Earlier in April, Elsheikh was found guilty of eight charges “relating to his participation in a brutal hostage-taking scheme that resulted in the deaths of four American citizens, as well as the deaths of British and Japanese nationals, in Syria”, the US Justice Department said.
Although capital punishment is available in some US states, the department struck a deal with the British government to take the death penalty off of the table.
Kotey chose not to stand trial in the US, instead pleading guilty to all eight counts he faced, which included “hostage taking resulting in the deaths of four Americans”.
Elsheikh and Kotey being brought to justice in the US was regarded as a major win for the families of the victims.
The trial of Elsheikh was also filled with “hidden gems” of information for those who study ISIS and extremism in general.
“Their cases are incredibly important because of the information that comes out at trial,” said Nessma Bashi, a legal officer at the Syrian Justice and Accountability Centre, who monitored the proceedings.
Ms Bashi said witness evidence may help her organisation discover the graves of missing and unaccounted for Syrian victims of ISIS.
“One of the witnesses described how he was held in a prison with a small window and as he looked out the window on one side, you could see the Euphrates River,” said Ms Bashi, who hoped the information would lead to the location of burial sites.
According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, there are more than 8,143 cases of people detained by ISIS whose fates remain unknown.
They were used as examples of how ISIS could turn these western citizens against their country and societies ALEXANDER MELEAGROU-HITCHENS Programme on Extremism