One of the members of the Islamic State (IS) kidnapping gang nicknamed “The Beatles” (because of the English accent) pleaded guilty on Thursday, September 2, to complicity in the kidnappings and murders of Western hostages, in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, United States. Prosecution representative Dennis Fitzpatrick said the families of the four American victims agreed with this change in defense strategy.
Alexanda Kotey, a 37-year-old former British national, has so far pleaded not guilty in court, alongside El Shafee el-Sheikh, 33, another of four members of the IS kidnapper group. They are notably accused of being involved in the murders of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, killed in 2014, and that of humanitarian workers Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller – the young American humanitarian, kidnapped in Aleppo (Syria) in August 2013, had been tortured, raped and killed.
By pleading guilty, Mr. Kotey “Agrees to spend the rest of his life in prison”, commented the representative of the prosecution, Raj Parekh, in court. By opting for this strategy, he has in fact waived his right to a trial and faces several life sentences without the right to early release. Judge TS Ellis, who was presiding over the hearing, will deliver the verdict on March 4, 2022.
Mr. Kotey also has an agreement with the government that he will provide all information in his possession about his actions in Syria. The agreement also provides that he will be extradited to the United Kingdom, after fifteen years in prison, where he is also being prosecuted for kidnapping and murder of hostages.
Deprived of British nationality
Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee el-Sheikh were extradited to the United States from Iraq in October 2020 to appear in American justice. They were captured in January 2018 by Syrian Kurdish forces, then handed over to the US military in Iraq.
The two men grew up in the UK, where they radicalized before joining ISIS in Syria in 2012. Alexanda Kotey explained in a statement that he joined Syria to fight President Bashar Al’s regime. -Assad considering that “The Islamic concept of armed jihad was of great value and a legitimate cause”. He then joined the IS unit responsible for the kidnapping and detention of non-Muslim hostages.
London, which did not want to judge him on its territory, stripped him of his British nationality. The extradition of the two men to the United States was only made possible after American authorities assured London that they would not seek a death sentence in the case.
A “Beatle” detained in Turkey
They are accused of kidnapping American, European, Japanese and Syrian hostages from 2012 to 2015, and of having tortured and killed their victims, in particular by beheading. Videos of the assassinations, circulated by ISIS for propaganda purposes, shocked the whole world.
The two men are said to have supervised the places of detention of the hostages and coordinated the ransom negotiations by e-mail. They would also have been involved “In repeated acts of physical and psychological violence against hostages”, according to American justice.
The alleged head of the cell, Mohammed Emwazi, nicknamed “Jihadi John”, was killed in an American airstrike in Syria in November 2015, while the fourth “Beatle”, Aine Davis, is being held in Turkey. He was convicted of terrorism in 2017.
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