DOJ To Charge 2 British ISIS Militants Accused Of Role In Killing U.S. Hostages

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Alexanda Kotey (left) and El Shafee Elsheikh, who were allegedly among four British jihadis who made up a brutal Islamic State cell dubbed «The Beatles, speak during an interview with The Associated Press at a security center in Kobani, Syria, in March 2018.





Hussein Malla/AP



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Hussein Malla/AP



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In 2018, the British government relented after deciding that having Kotey and Elsheikh stand trial in the U.S. was the best approach. It agreed to transfer the evidence without a guarantee from Washington not to seek the death penalty.

But that move was put on hold after Elsheikh’s mother filed a lawsuit in the U.K. challenging the decision.

In August, Attorney General William Barr provided the British government assurances that the United States would not seek to execute the men if they were tried and convicted. He also warned that the U.S. would hand Kotey and Elsheikh to Iraqi authorities for prosecution if the British government failed to resolve the issue by Oct. 15.

Late last month, a U.K. court cleared the way for the two men to be tried in the U.S., and British authorities handed over the evidence that Washington had requested more than five years ago.

That was the final piece U.S. prosecutors needed for their case against Kotey and Elsheikh, and the Justice Department is expected to announce criminal charges against the duo this week, the law enforcement official told NPR on condition of anonymity.

The rise of the Islamic State

The Islamic State had been a growing power in Syria and Iraq when it finally burst into the American public’s consciousness in June 2014 with its takeover of the city of Mosul in northern Iraq.

With the fall of Mosul, the militants turned their sights on Baghdad.

At the time, it was unclear whether the Iraqi government could withstand the onslaught, and the U.S. scrambled to try to shore up its Iraqi allies. In early August 2014, the Obama administration began conducting airstrikes against the terrorist group in Iraq.

Just over a week later, the Islamic State posted a graphic video online showing James Foley’s murder. Foley had been taken captive in Syria in 2012 by extremists and was held hostage with other Westerners by the Islamic State.



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The group released a second video less than a month after Foley’s murder showing the killing of another American journalist, Steven Sotloff. A third American, aid worker Peter Kassig, was killed a few months later.

These videos were among a series of other gruesome videos that featured a masked man dressed in black who spoke to the camera in a British accent. The Western press often referred to the man as «Jihadi John, and he was later identified as the cell’s ringleader, Mohammed Emwazi.

A fourth American, Kayla Mueller, was also held hostage by the Islamic State. She was repeatedly raped by the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Mueller was killed in 2015.

Eventually, the tide of the fight against the Islamic State shifted and the militants suffered a string of setbacks.

Emwazi was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2015. That same year, another member of the cell, Aine Davis, was captured in Turkey. He was tried and convicted in a Turkish court and sentenced to seven years in prison.

Now, the two remaining members of the group, Kotey and Elsheikh, are to face justice in the United States.

In an op-ed published this summer in The Washington Post, the families of the group’s American victims urged the U.S. government to bring the two men to the U.S. to face trial.

Kotey and Elsheikh have admitted they belonged to the Islamic State but have denied a role in any killings. In an interview with The Washington Post, they said they facilitated ransom negotiations with the hostages’ families and the respective governments.

The Islamic State released several European hostages in exchange for ransom, but none of the Americans.

In 2015, then-President Barack Obama announced changes to U.S. hostage policy after the American hostages’ families expressed frustration and outrage with how the government had handled the situation.