ALEXANDRIA, Va. – A federal judge on Friday sentenced a key member of the Islamic State organization known as The Beatles to eight life sentences with no parole over kidnapping, abuse and death. of four Americans in Syria, ending their families’ strenuous efforts to bring the fighters to justice.
In April, a jury found El Shafee Elsheikh, 34, 4 counts of taking hostages and 4 counts of conspiracy after two weeks of testing. Arrested ex-prisoners detail the relentless beatings, sexual abuse, skateboarding and murders of three young Britons, who were nicknamed The Beatles for their voices and their incessant jokes.
Relatives of the four Americans – journalists James Foley and Steven J. Sotloff as well as aid workers Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig – watched intently, linking arms and clasping hands, as Judge Thomas S. Ellis III of the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia imposed three life terms at the request of attorneys with the Department of Justice.
“It’s an empty victory,” said Mr Foley’s mother, Diane Foley, adding that the sentence was handed down on the eight-year anniversary of her son’s strangulation. head. “Our family has lost our loved ones forever.”
Judge Ellis, noticing the growing interest in the case over the years, urged reporters to cover the hearing and the country at large “not to forget what happened here”.
The fact that Mr. Elsheikh, who remained polite, relaxed and largely unflappable when he appeared in court, knew he would spend the rest of his days behind bars was a foregone conclusion before his sentencing on Wednesday. Six. He is expected to serve five life sentences under federally mandated guidelines.
But prosecutors consider each additional year important, given the brutality of the crime. In a 22-page sentencing memo presented to the court, the lead prosecutor in the case, Raj Parekh, asked for the maximum penalty allowed by law. Elsheikh’s punishment should reflect the fighters’ involvement in various other crimes in the Islamic State offensive in Syria in 2012 and 2013, he said.
“The ISIS Beatles were engaged in the systematic torture and abuse of their victims, which ultimately resulted in the horrific deaths of at least eight American, British and Japanese citizens, including,” Mr. Parekh wrote. Even gruesome executions were videotaped and broadcast globally. , the first assistant United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
The families of the victims worked for years to secure a conviction, pressuring the Justice Department to bring Mr. Elsheikh and an associate, Alexanda Kotey, to justice on American soil. In August 2020, William P. Barr, then attorney general, agreed to exempt the men from the death penalty in exchange for cooperation from British prosecutors.
Mr Elsheikh never denied fighting for the Islamic State, but in their rebuttal, court-appointed defense lawyers argued he was not a member of The Beatles. They assumed his involvement in the kidnappings was the result of mistaken identity as captors often wore black tank tops to conceal their identities, they said.
Mr Elsheikh was not directly involved in the murder, but his involvement in – and knowledge of – multiple kidnapping, ransom and murder plots was sufficient to warrant conviction under the law, prosecutors argued. .
British extremists repeatedly beat the hostages they held in Raqqa, Syria, where the Islamic State proclaimed itself the capital at the time, according to prosecutors. pellets. They subjected their prisoners to abuse such as water skiing, mock executions, painful stressful positions, food shortages, barriers that caused power outages, electric shocks and beatings lasting 20 minutes or so. than. They also forced inmates to fight each other and witness murders, court papers said.
