British nationwide El Shafee Elsheikh has been sentenced to life in jail for his function in an Islamic State scheme that took roughly two dozen Westerners hostage a decade in the past.
Elsheikh’s hostages gave him a considerably whimsical nickname — he was dubbed a “Beatle” together with different English-accented captors — however the moniker belied the viciousness of his conduct.
“This prosecution unmasked the vicious and sadistic ISIS Beatles,” mentioned First Assistant US Lawyer Raj Parekh, noting that Elsheikh and the opposite Beatles at all times wore masks once they appeared in entrance of their hostages.
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He’s essentially the most infamous and highest-ranking member of the Islamic State group to ever be convicted in a US Courtroom, prosecutors mentioned Friday at his sentencing listening to in US District Courtroom in Alexandria. The life sentence was a foregone conclusion after a jury convicted him of hostage taking leading to dying and different crimes earlier this yr.
The convictions revolved across the deaths of 4 American hostages: James Foley, Steven Sotloff, Peter Kassig, and Kayla Mueller. All however Mueller had been executed in videotaped beheadings circulated on-line. Mueller was compelled into slavery and raped a number of occasions by Islamic State chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi earlier than she was killed.
They had been amongst 26 hostages taken captive between 2012 and 2015, when the Islamic State group managed massive swaths of Iraq and Syria.
The convictions carried a compulsory life sentence. The US agreed to not pursue dying sentence as a part of a deal that ensured extradition of Elsheikh and his buddy, Alexanda Kotey, who has already been sentenced to life.
Parekh mentioned it was tough to convey the brutality of Elsheikh’s actions. “We lack the vocabulary of such ache,” he mentioned, paraphrasing Dante’s Inferno.
Nonetheless, victims of Elsheikh and the Beatles testified at Friday’s listening to and gave voice to what they skilled. Danish photographer Daniel Rye Ottosen, who was launched after paying a ransom, mentioned the worst moments had been occasions of silence throughout and after captivity when he was alone together with his ideas.
He mentioned when Elsheikh and the Beatles beat him up, it was nearly a aid.
“Now I knew I may solely focus on my ache, which is way simpler than being alone along with your ideas,” he mentioned.
Ottosen was significantly near Foley, and memorised a goodbye letter that Foley wrote to his household so he may dictate it to Foley’s dad and mom when he was launched.
Foley’s mom, Diane Foley, mentioned holding Elsheikh accountable at trial sends a message of deterrence to different would-be hostage takers.
“Hatred actually overwhelmed your humanity,” she advised Elsheikh on Friday, which was the eighth anniversary of James Foley’s beheading.
At trial, surviving hostages testified that they dreaded the Beatles’ look on the numerous prisons to which they had been always shuttled and relocated. Elsheikh and the opposite Beatles performed a key function within the hostage negotiations, getting hostages to e mail their households with calls for for funds.
In addition they routinely beat and tortured the hostages, forcing them to combat one another to the purpose of passing out, threatening them with waterboarding and forcing them view pictures of slain hostages.
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