A US federal judge on Friday sentenced jihadist El Shafee Elsheikh, a member of the Islamic State terror group that was part of the cell known as the Beatles, to life in prison for kidnapping Westerners in Syria a decade ago, some of which were beheaded.
Elsheikh, captured in 2018 by Kurdish militias in Syria, is the most senior Islamic State member ever convicted on American soil, the US Department of Justice said in a statement.
A member of the cell known as the Beatles – so called because of the British accent of its members – the jihadist was tried for his role in the 2014 kidnappings of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and aid workers Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller.
Foley, Sotloff and Kassig were beheaded, and their deaths videotaped as propaganda, while Mueller was selected by Islamic State leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi as his personal hostage, during which time she was repeatedly raped before being killed.
Elsheikh was also involved in the kidnapping and murder of the British David Haines and Alan Henning and the Japanese Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto and was part of the group that kidnapped Spanish journalists Javier Espinosa, Ricard García Vilanova and Marc Marginedas in Syria.
Espinosa, who spent six months in Syria, described Elsheikh as the “craziest” and “most brutal” of the terrorists who kidnapped him.
During the trial, held in Alexandria, Virginia, Elsheikh confessed that he had been part of the cell and explained that, among other functions, he was responsible for contacting the families to show that the hostages were still alive and asking for a reward for their release. The jury found him guilty in April, and he was sentenced to life in prison on Friday.
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