A court has found El Shafee Elsheikh, a 33-year-old former British national, guilty of all eight charges after a trial in Alexandria, Virginia. The court debated for four hours before reaching its verdict on the most important prosecution of an Islamic State member in the United States. Elseih remained motionless and gave no visible reaction when reading the verdict. He now faces a life sentence. Elsheikh was charged with hostage-taking, conspiracy to commit murder of American citizens – journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and aid workers Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller – and support of a terrorist organization. At the two-week trial, the group was heard forcing their captives to fight until they collapsed, forcing them to sing harsh parodies of songs. The surviving hostages testified that they were happy to rewrite “Hotel California” as “Hotel Osama” and made them sing the refrain “You will never leave”. The finding of guilt came though none of the surviving hostages could identify Elsheikh as one of their captors. Although the Beatles had characteristic accents – the survivors identified them as “John”, “George” and “Ringo” – they always made sure to hide their faces behind masks and ordered the hostages to avoid eye contact or risk being beaten. Prosecutors suggested in the opening statement that Elsheikh was the man nicknamed “Ringo”, but they simply had to prove that Elshiekh was one of the Beatles because the testimony showed that all three were important players in the plot. “The Beatles were the soul of the hostage-taking conspiracy,” US First Assistant Attorney Raj Parek told jurors Wednesday during a bitter dispute. Elsheikh, who was arrested by the Syrian Kurdish Defense Forces in 2018, finally confessed to his role in the plot to investigators as well as in media interviews, acknowledging that he helped collect email addresses and provided proof of life to hostage families. ransom negotiations. But the testimony showed that he and the other Beatles were much more than paper pushers. The hostage-takers said they were afraid of the men appearing in the various prisons to which they were constantly transported and relocated. Surviving witness Federico Motka recounted a moment in the summer of 2013 when he and his cellmate David Haynes entered a room with American hostage James Foley and British hostage John Candley and were forced to fight “what” . The losers were told they would fall into the water. Weak from hunger, two of the four fainted during the hour-long battle. The sentences for all eight charges in the U.S. District Court in Alexandria revolved around the deaths of four American hostages. Everyone except Mueller was executed in videotaped beheadings that circulated on the Internet. Muller was forced into slavery and repeatedly raped by Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi before being killed. He was among 26 hostages taken between 2012 and 2015, when Islamic State controlled large swathes of Iraq and Syria. Defense attorneys acknowledged that Elsheikh had joined the Islamic State group, but said prosecutors had failed to prove he was a Beatle. They mentioned the lack of clarity about who the Beatles were, and in the opening statement of the trial they mentioned the confusion about whether there were three or four Beatles. Prosecutors said there were three: Elsheikh and his friends Alexenda Kotey and Mohammed Emwazi, who all knew each other in Britain before joining Islamic State. Emuazi, known as “Jihadi John” and carrying out the executions, was later killed in a drone strike. Kotey and Elsheikh were arrested together in 2018 and transferred to Virginia in 2020 for trial after the US promised not to seek the death penalty. Kotey pleaded guilty last year to a deal that carries a life sentence, but leaves open the possibility of serving his sentence in the UK after 15 years in the US. Britain stripped Kotey and Elsheikh of British citizenship. The court heard horrifying testimonies from survivors and their families. Kassing’s father, Ed, took the witness stand and read a May 2014 letter written by his late son in captivity. He used to say: “Dad, I’m paralyzed here. I’m afraid to counterattack. Some of me still have hope. “Part of me is sure I will die.” Kassing – a humanitarian worker taken hostage in Syria in 2013 – wrote that his captors tried to persuade the hostages that they had been abandoned by their families and countries because they refused to comply with Islamic State demands. “But of course we know you do what you can and more. “Do not worry, Dad, if I go down, I will think of nothing but what I know to be true, that you and Mom love me more than the moon!” Kassing added: “If I die, I believe that at least you and I can find some shelter and comfort knowing that I came out as a result of trying to relieve pain and help those in need.”
