ALEXANDRIA, VA – A Virginia federal jury on Wednesday began deliberation on the case of a confessed ISIS fighter accused of being one of the infamous “Beatles,” British terrorists who killed more than six people among a group of 26 Westerners. Victims were tortured, murdered and taken hostage in Syria.
Al Shafi Elsheikh did not deny fighting for ISIS, but rested his defense in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, on his claim that it was a case of mistaken identity about Westerners being held captive. They face a life sentence, including four Americans and two Britons, if convicted of the capture of hostages and the deaths of journalists and humanitarian aid workers.
In closing arguments on Wednesday, federal prosecutors said Elsheikh was one of those who brutalized American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, as well as aid workers Peter Kasig and Kayla Mueller. ISIS videos in 2014–15 showed men being beheaded by a black-clad and masked ISIS executioner nicknamed “Jihadi John” as hostages dubbed “Beatles” to discuss them while in captivity Was.
The video shocked the world as the executioner – who was later named as Mohammed Emwazi – sought to stop US military attacks against ISIS.
Kayla Mueller, 26, of Prescott, Arizona, was reportedly killed in an airstrike by ISIS in February 2015. It was later revealed that she was taken by ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and repeatedly abused and raped.
Prosecutor Raj Parekh told the jury, “Alsheikh is, without a doubt, an ISIS beetle.”
But defense attorney Nina Ginsberg responded that the US never produced any concrete evidence that the defendant was anything other than a foot soldier in ISIS battling Syrian forces.
Despite evidence from a parade of former hostages and FBI agents who testified during the trial in what he described as a “disgusting, brutal act,” Ginsberg said the government had failed to prove that Elschech was a captive, And he was “never identified in this trial” by any of the former hostages.
Instead the US relied primarily on Elsheikh’s own statements, since he was captured by the Syrian Democratic Forces in 2018 along with fellow ISIS beetle Alexandra Cote, who has pleaded guilty. He told several journalists, primarily British filmmaker Sean Langen, on video that he took Westerners captive, obtained email addresses of family members from hostages such as Müller, and beat others such as Danish photojournalist Daniel Rye.
Rye testified on Tuesday, in which British ISIS members, on his 25th birthday, had him stabbed in the ribs 25 times, hanged by his hands and jammed the barrel of an MP5 submachine gun in his mouth.
He described the loyalty of Foley, who once had the opportunity to escape captivity, but refused to release his partner, the British journalist John Cantley, whose whereabouts and existence are unknown. Notably, a photograph of Cantley was shown to jurors with six other hostages known to have been killed.
The captors forced him to sing a version of “Hotel California”, emphasizing the line “you can never leave”—but it was hardly his worst suffering.
Sotloff tried to leave the letter for Müller in a communal toilet, but he was caught and severely punished, Cantley and Foley, they recalled. When he learned that after 13 months he had been paid a ransom and was ready for release, Rae said that Cantley had come to him.
“He wanted me to bring out a message. As the family members of the hostages held each other in the courtroom, Rye said, ‘If you can’t get us released, drop a bomb on this place – we Kill it
By the time he and another hostage were told that they were being released as were the last two Europeans, Rye said the American and British hostages knew they would be executed. The US began bombing ISIS in August 2014.
The Americans retreated quietly in one corner of the small room, the British in the other. As he left the room, “I saw my friends for the last time, and thought this was the last time I’d see them alive,” Rye told the jury.
Prosecutors said all the hostages were brutally killed and that those ultimately killed showed superhuman courage. He described a year or more of broken ribs, thighs he called “dead legs”, a state of stress, water loss, mock executions – and finally beheadings, which, at the very least, would have ended his suffering. Is.
“All these people wanted was the right thing to do,” said Assistant US Attorney Dennis Fitzpatrick.
Sotloff’s father, Art, told ABC News that justice had been served.
“I feel like they’re all looking down on us, patting us on the back for doing the right thing,” he said.
Editor’s Note: ABC News investigative reporter James Gordon Meek has been the recipient of the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation’s 2022 World Press Freedom Award for reporting on hostage cases since 1993.
