One of ISIS’s bloodthirsty “Beatles” confessed to beheading four Americans in Syria

Seven years later Islamic State will horrify people around the world by beheading hostages and using their deaths in propaganda videos, former member admitted to being involved in the murders of four Americans.

Alexanda A. Kotey, 37, pleaded guilty on Thursday in Federal Court in Alexandria to participating in the kidnappings and deaths of journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and aid workers Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller. The three men were beheaded on camera in videos posted on the internet. The circumstances of Mueller’s death remain unclear.

All four traveled to Syria, according to their friends and family, for a a strong desire to help, whether it is reporting on the war in this country or helping those displaced by the conflict.

Kotey’s guilty plea marks the first time that an Islamic State operative has been held responsible for these murders in a US court. You face a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment.

In return for his admission of guilt and his promised cooperation, prosecutors agreed that, After Kotey serves 15 years in a US prison, he can try to serve the remainder of his sentence in the UK, where he was born.. If that happens, Kotey also agreed that he would plead guilty in a UK trial and would face a life sentence there, and would be returned to the US if released by the UK.

The government accepted the possible transfer because three Britons were also kidnapped by the same terrorist group, and two, aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, were killed. A third, the journalist Jean Cantlie, has never been found and the UK government said in 2019 he may still be alive.

The parents of the four U.S. victims were in the courtroom Thursday, taking notes and wiping their eyes as their children’s names were read over and over again. They had lobbied for criminal trials in the United States.

After the hearing, Diane Foley, mother of James Foley, thanked the Department of Justice for “this exceptional lawsuit”., while imploring the government to “give priority to the return of all American citizens kidnapped or wrongly detained abroad”, calling it “Silent epidemic”.

Kotey was captured in Syria in 2018 along with El Shafee Elsheikh, another accused Islamic State activist awaiting trial in the case, and taken to the United States in October.

Along with the masked killer in the videos, Mohammed Emwazi, who was killed in a drone attack in 2015, and a fourth Londoner, Aine Davis, they became known hostages as “The Beatles” for their British accent.

Kotey was born and raised in London and began practicing Islam in her early twenties. He and Emwazi attended the same mosque and traveled to Syria together in 2012.

The United Kingdom, which had revoked the couple’s nationality, assisted the US attorney’s office in ensuring that men did not face the death penalty.

“The justice, fairness and humanity that this defendant received in the United States contrasts with the cruelty, inhumanity and indiscriminate violence of the terrorist organization to which he joined,” said Raj Parekh, prosecutor. of the Eastern District of Virginia, following the hearing. “Today, through the voices and lives of victims, justice has spoken, and it is these words that will resonate throughout history “.

In court, Kotey read a statement in which he said he was “Mainly involved in all the processes of these negotiations” to try to extract the ransom from the United States, including emails and “proof of life videos and emails” sent to the families of the hostages. “This role sometimes forced me to play acts of violence against captives to bring them under control, with the end of force these western governments, including the United States, to act quickly and cooperate with our demands. I had no doubt that any breach of our demands by these foreign governments would ultimately result in the indefinite detention of these foreign captives, or their execution. “

He also claimed that he served as sniper for the islamic state.

Prosecutors alleged that Kotey and Elsheikh were involved in ISIS’s attempts to extort ransom from the families of prisoners by calculated brutality.

Kotey asked the hostages to kneel and watch the execution of a Syrian prisoner while holding signs calling for his release, prosecutors said.

Under President Barack Obama, the military attempted to rescue the four American hostages, but to no avail.

Foley, 40, freelance journalist who worked for the GlobalPost, based in Boston, was kidnapped with a British interpreter in November 2012. GlobalPost said he was working desperately to save Foley, but video of his death was released in August 2014.

Sotloff, 31, was also a Freelance journalist raised in Florida who was kidnapped near Aleppo in August 2013. The video of his death was made public in September 2014.

Mueller, 26, was a Arizona aid worker who had worked with agencies like Doctors Without Borders when she was abducted in August 2013. Her family received an email with photos confirming her death in February 2015.

Kassig, 26, was a former Indiana Army Ranger who founded a humanitarian aid group for refugees and was on his way to deliver food and medical supplies to refugees when he was kidnapped in October 2013. Video of his death was made public in November 2014.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria reached its peak in 2015, and as the group’s territory shrank, the campaign of public beheadings ended. But followers of the group’s violent ideology continue to resort to these brutal methods; In recent months, observers claim that Islamist militants have beheaded dozens of civilians in Mozambique.

Elsheikh will be tried in January. Davis was jailed in Turkey in 2017.

Kotey pleaded guilty to charges, including the hostage-taking which resulted in the death of four Americans. and conspire to support the terrorists who killed the American, British and Japanese hostages.

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