British nationwide El Shafee Elsheikh has been sentenced to existence in jail for his role in an Islamic Teach procedure that took roughly two dozen Westerners hostage a decade previously.
Elsheikh’s hostages gave him a pretty whimsical nickname – he used to be dubbed a “Beatle” along with other English-accented captors – but the moniker belied the viciousness of his conduct.
“This prosecution unmasked the vicious and sadistic ISIS Beatles,” said First Assistant US Approved expert Raj Parekh, noting that Elsheikh and the opposite Beatles always wore masks when they looked in front of their hostages.
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He’s doubtlessly the most notorious and intensely top-ranking member of the Islamic Teach community to ever be convicted in a US Court, prosecutors said Friday at his sentencing hearing in US District Court in Alexandria.
The existence sentence used to be a foregone conclusion after a jury convicted him of hostage taking ensuing in death and other crimes earlier this year.
The convictions revolved all the procedure throughout the deaths of 4 American hostages: James Foley, Steven Sotloff, Peter Kassig, and Kayla Mueller. All but Mueller were executed in videotaped beheadings circulated online. Mueller used to be compelled into slavery and raped more than one times by Islamic Teach chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi prior to she used to be killed.
British nationwide El Shafee Elsheikh has been sentenced to existence in jail for his role in an Islamic Teach procedure that took roughly two dozen Westerners hostage a decade previously. Credit: Hussein Malla/AP fileThey were amongst 26 hostages taken captive between 2012 and 2015, when the Islamic Teach community controlled indispensable swaths of Iraq and Syria.
The convictions carried a necessary existence sentence. The US agreed now not to pursue death sentence as a part of a deal that ensured extradition of Elsheikh and his buddy, Alexanda Kotey, who has already been sentenced to existence.
Parekh said it used to be sophisticated to raise the brutality of Elsheikh’s actions. “We lack the vocabulary of such distress,” he said, paraphrasing Dante’s Inferno.
British IS hostage-taker dubbed a ‘Beatle’ by US captives sentenced to existence in jail for their deaths. Credit: APStill, victims of Elsheikh and the Beatles testified at Friday’s hearing and gave instruct to what they skilled. Danish photographer Daniel Rye Ottosen, who used to be launched after paying a ransom, said the worst moments were times of silence for the interval of and after captivity when he used to be by myself along with his tips.
He said when Elsheikh and the Beatles beat him up, it used to be nearly a relief.
“Now I knew I may maybe also simplest pay consideration to my distress, which is procedure simpler than being by myself along with your tips,” he said.
Ottosen used to be in particular discontinuance to Foley, and memorised a goodbye letter that Foley wrote to his family so he may maybe also dictate it to Foley’s other folks when he used to be launched.
Foley’s mother, Diane Foley, said holding Elsheikh accountable at trial sends a message of deterrence to other would-be hostage takers.
“Hatred truly overwhelmed your humanity,” she told Elsheikh on Friday, which used to be the eighth anniversary of James Foley’s beheading.
At trial, surviving hostages testified that they dreaded the Beatles’ look on the plenty of prisons to which they were always shuttled and relocated. Elsheikh and the opposite Beatles performed a key role in the hostage negotiations, getting hostages to e-mail their families with demands for funds.
They additionally automatically beat and tortured the hostages, forcing them to combat every other to the level of passing out, threatening them with waterboarding and forcing them behold images of slain hostages.
Horrific 2d lady shoots at police from help of police automobile.
Horrific 2d lady shoots at police from help of police automobile.
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