The four members of these “Beatles”, who were active in Syria between 2012 and 2015 and all radicalized in London, are accused of overseeing the detention of at least 27 journalists and humanitarian workers. This group had gained sinister notoriety by staging prisoner executions in intolerable propaganda videos.
El Shafee el-Sheikh, a member of the ferocious “Beatles” of the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, a cell specializing in the capture, torture and execution of Western hostages, is due to face his sentencing on Friday, August 19 a US court know. He faces life imprisonment for the murder of four Americans. El Shafee el-Sheikh, 34, was arrested by Syrian Kurdish forces in 2018. He has since been found guilty by a popular jury in April after a harrowing trial exposed the “Beatles” sadism in broad daylight.
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A 12-person jury deliberated less than six hours over two days before convicting him of his role in the deaths of four Americans, journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and aides Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller.
What happened to the other three members?
El Shafee el-Sheikh was arrested along with another suspected member of The Beatles, Alexanda Kotey, a 38-year-old former British citizen. The two men were handed over to US forces in Iraq and sent to the United States to stand trial in 2020. Alexanda Kotey pleaded guilty in September 2021 and was sentenced to life in prison last April by Judge TS Ellis, who is set to deliver the verdict on El Shafee el-Sheikh on Friday. Another alleged “Beatles” member, Aine Davis, 38, has been charged and brought before a British court in London last week after being deported from Turkey. The most famous of the group, Briton Mohammed Emwazi, aka “Jihadi John”, was killed by an American drone in Syria in 2015. He appeared in several videos showing throats.
Why the nickname “Beatles”?
The four members of these “Beatles”, who were active in Syria between 2012 and 2015 and all radicalized in London, are accused of overseeing the detention of at least 27 journalists and humanitarian workers from the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Spain to have Italy, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Japan, New Zealand and Russia. The nickname “Beatles” was given to this group of British-accented jihadists by Western hostages. This group had gained sinister notoriety by staging prisoner executions in intolerable propaganda videos.
Atrocities suffered by the hostages
At the trial of El Shafee el-Sheikh, ten former European and Syrian hostages described the atrocities suffered by the “Beatles” such as simulated drowning, electric shocks or mock executions. This week, British police revealed that bringing the case against the “Beatles” was tantamount to building a ten-year “puzzle from very small pieces”.
“We followed a trail of little breadcrumbs, actually fragments, from a huge body of other investigations,” London Counter-Terrorism Chief Richard Smith told reporters on Wednesday.