`Beatle' gets life sentence for beheadings

ALEXANDRIA, VA. >> As people in a packed courtroom wept, Lucy Henning talked about her own guilt at the death of her father, Alan Henning, who was tortured and beheaded by the Islamic State a decade ago.

“If I weren't a moody teenager, maybe he wouldn't have gone,” she said through tears at Friday's sentencing hearing for Alexanda Kotey, one of two British nationals — known as the “Beatles” by their captives — who was convicted in U.S. District Court in Alexandria for their roles in the hostage-taking scheme. Roughly two dozen Westerners were abducted and four Americans were killed.

Lucy said she has many questions about her father that remain unanswered: “Did he want to send us a message? Was he mad that we didn't get him out? Was he buried or cremated? Or was he just left there?”

Kotey was sentenced Friday to life in prison. The sentence was a foregone conclusion under the plea deal he entered last year. El Shafee Elsheikh, another British national, will be formally sentenced in August and will also receive a life term. The death penalty was not an option under the terms of the agreement that allowed their extradition to the U.S.

Kotey was specifically charged with conspiring in the kidnapping and deaths of four Americans — journalists James Foley and Steven

Sotloff and aid workers Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig. Foley, Sotloff and Kassig were all beheaded. Mueller was tortured and raped by Islamic State leader Abu Bakr AlBaghdadi before she was killed. British aid workers Henning and David Haines were also killed by beheading by the Islamic State.

About a dozen family members and survivors spoke at Friday's hearing. Kayla Mueller's father, Carl Mueller, said that during the ordeal, “I lost my faith in God, and I lost my faith in our government.”

He said the trial and prosecution of Elsheikh and Kotey restored his faith in government, prompting tears from Judge T.S. Ellis III.