IS ‘Beatles’ will be tried in US over beheading captives
BRITISH judges have cleared the way for two alleged members of Islamic State’s “Beatles” execution squad to be tried in America.
The Supreme Court yesterday lifted a ban on us sending evidence about Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh to US authorities.
The move came after the US said it will not give the pair, who are British citizens, the death penalty if found guilty of terror crimes.
But if convicted Kotey, 36, and Elsheikh, 32, face misery in America’s toughest prison – the Supermax in Florence, Colorado.
Supermax prisoners are confined in solitary cells for 23 hours a day.
They cannot move around without being escorted and head counts are carried out at least six times a day.The boredom is excruciating.
One US law enforcement source said: “It’s simply hell on Earth.”
Kotey and Elsheikh were captured in January 2018 and are being held at a secret location by the US military.They are suspected of being part of the Beatles execution gang responsible for 27 killings in Syria.
The sick group posted videos of beheadings it carried out online.
Victims are said to include British aid workers David Haines and Alan
Henning, as well as US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff.
They are also suspected of killing US aid workers Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig – and missing British journalist John Cantlie. The gang were nicknamed the Beatles due to their British accents with Kotey and Elsheikh claimed to have been known as George and Ringo.
The group’s most infamous member Jihadi John, real name Mohammed Emwazi, was killed in a drone attack in Raqqa in 2015.
Another suspected member of the gang, Aine Davis, is serving a sentence for terror crimes in Turkey.
US prosecutors wanted information from us to put Kotey and Elsheikh on trial. But the Supreme Court ruled in March data protection laws prevented us passing material to any country in cases that could end in a death penalty.
That ruling followed legal action taken by Elsheikh’s mother, Maha Elgizouli.
But US Attorney General William Barr removed the stumbling block last week when he said prosecutors would not seek to execute either prisoner if they are found guilty.
The Supreme Court yesterday released an order which brought Ms Elgizouli’s legal action to an end and removed the ban on us sending the requested evidence.
A spokeswoman for the court said: “The order concludes the proceedings in the Supreme Court, which means the stay or the stop on providing material to the US government is removed.”