British ISIS militant guilty in kidnapping and murder of hostages

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Nearly eight years after the Islamic State published horrifying videos of an American journalist being beheaded in the Syrian desert, a British militant was found guilty of taking part in the group’s spree of kidnapping, torture and murder.

On Thursday, El Shafee Elsheikh became the only member of the group nicknamed “The Beatles” to be convicted by a U.S. jury. He faces a mandatory life sentence for conspiring to murder American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and humanitarian workers Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller.

Mueller and the other victims followed the ethos of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Assistant U.S. Attorney Dennis Fitzpatrick told jurors, believing “it’s always the right time to do the right thing.”

Through the harrowing testimony of captives who escaped, aid workers who tried to rescue their colleagues and families who spent years responding to impossible ransom demands, prosecutors over weeks of trial in Alexandria federal court laid out the terror group’s scheme to leverage Western hostages, for money or propaganda purposes, during Syria’s civil war. The trial also revealed that there were only three Beatles, not four as long reported and believed.

The families successfully pushed for the Trump administration to forgo seeking the death penalty to secure support for the prosecution from Britain.

“It’s what the families asked for,” Mueller’s father, Carl Mueller, said. “As arduous and painful as this trial was, it was a privilege to be a part of it, and see the American justice system at work.”

Surviving hostages testified that John Cantlie, a U.K. journalist, came up with “The Beatles” as a code name for the particularly cruel guards that had British accents. Mohammed Emwazi, who executed several hostages in gruesome propaganda videos, was “George” - even though he was later dubbed “Jihadi John” by the media. Emwazi was killed in a drone strike in 2015. Alexanda Kotey, who pleaded guilty in the same court last year, was “John.” Elsheikh, according to the evidence at trial, was “Ringo.”

As recently as late 2020, authorities pointed to another Londoner who is in a Turkish prison, Aine Davis, as a member of the group. But FBI Special Agent John Chiappone testified at trial that the investigation ultimately found there were only three hostage-takers, and none of the witnesses said otherwise. One survivor, Italian aid worker Federico Motka, testified that another ISIS fighter with a British accent was dubbed Paul, “but wasn’t part of the main group of Beatles.” When asked why U.S. officials for years said there were four Beatles, a spokesman for the Justice Department only pointed to Chiappone’s testimony.

Elsheikh and Kotey were captured trying to flee Syria in 2018. While in Kurdish custody, they gave a series of media interviews in which they eventually confessed to taking part in the hostage scheme, although they claimed their roles were only guard duty and ransom negotiations. He described Foley’s bravery, Mueller’s isolation, and the filming of a video in which a Syrian prisoner was killed in front of other hostages. He also said there were only three hostage-takers, and that the fourth was a misconception created by the press.

Defense attorney Nina Ginsberg posited in closing arguments that Elsheikh made those confessions only “to avoid being sent to Iraq for a summary trial and execution.”

When they came into a prison, “The Beatles” always wore masks and made the hostages face the wall with their hands up, the hostages testified - a point Ginsberg emphasized.

If it was difficult for hostages to pick out particular Beatles, they were unanimous in describing the feeling their captors instilled with their depravity: terror.

They were particularly harsh on the American and British hostages, witnesses testified - singling out Foley because he had embedded with U.S. troops, Kassig because of his military background and Sotloff because they suspected he was Jewish. Europeans were freed through private or government funds. But British and American governments had forbidden such payments, and Danish journalist Daniel Rye Ottosen said it became clear at a certain point that the American and British hostages were “on a journey just for them.”

They began banding together, he said. When Sotloff was caught trying to communicate with Mueller, Foley and Kassig said they were also to blame. When Foley was ordered to stand for 24 hours straight, Kassig and Sotloff did too.

The wait was torture for the parents as well. While the U.S. launched a raid to try to save the hostages, that failed effort was the only attempt families saw to help them or their loved ones.

Ottosen testified that Cantlie gave him a message to deliver to the British and U.S. authorities - “If you can’t get us released, kill us with a bomb so we can’t be used as propaganda.” Foley, Kassig and Sotloff were all beheaded for propaganda videos, along with British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning and Japanese journalist Kenji Goto.

“To see him laying there in the sand, his head between his shoulders, did not make me angry or sad,” Ottosen testified of seeing the video of Foley’s death. “I felt happy for James that nobody could hurt him anymore; nobody could torture him anymore.”

Foley, a 39-year-old teacher-turned-journalist from New Hampshire, was finishing a reporting trip in Syria when he was kidnapped. He was the first American killed. Sotloff, murdered next, was a 30-year-old freelancer from Miami. Like Foley, he was committed to making visceral stories out of complex conflicts in the Middle East.

Kassig was 26 when he died; a former Army Ranger, he had gone to Syria to start a volunteer emergency medical service.

Mueller was just starting to do humanitarian work in the region and was turning 25 when she was kidnapped leaving an Aleppo hospital. She was pronounced dead by ISIS in February 2015. The terrorist group blamed a Jordanian airstrike. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Raj Parekh called that a “propagandistic lie” and an “unlikely scenario.”

Cantlie was last seen in an Islamic State video in December 2016. The Red Cross said in 2019 that Louisa Akavi, a New Zealand nurse who was held with Mueller, may still be alive.

After the verdict, there were tears and embraces between the prosecutors, defense attorneys and witnesses who went through days of heart-rending testimony. In her closing on Elsheikh’s behalf, Ginsberg said “these extraordinary men and women, and the members of their families, were and are among the bravest people any of us will ever have the privilege to know.”

Diane Foley said she thanked God for the verdict, and said it had special significance coming during a holy season for several religions.

“It’s the very opposite of what our children experienced - justice, not revenge,” she said. “We sought the truth and the truth has emerged.”