Topline
A British man was found guilty in U.S. court Thursday for helping to kidnap several American citizens—including slain photojournalist James Foley—while part of the Islamic State, closing out one of the highest-profile trials of a Western recruit to the infamous terror group.
In this 2019 file photo, Alexanda Kotey (left) and El Shafee Elsheikh speak to the Associated Press … [+]
Key Facts
Jurors in Virginia convicted El Shafee Elsheikh on all four counts of hostage-taking and all four counts of conspiracy, Karolina Foote—a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia—confirmed to Forbes.
Prosecutors say Elsheikh entered Syria in 2012 and joined the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra before later switching to the Islamic State (also known as IS or ISIS), where he participated in a notorious hostage-taking cell with two other British citizens.
The three-person cell—which captives sometimes called “The Beatles”—was accused of kidnapping, terrorizing and executing multiple Westerners, including American citizens like Foley, aid workers Kayla Mueller and Edward Kassig and journalist Steven Sotloff.
An indictment also said Elsheikh and another member of the cell “coordinated” sending emails to the captives’ families demanding money or the release of U.S.-held prisoners.
Elsheikh’s defense attorney Edward MacMahon reportedly argued during a two-week trial—which included testimony from a dozen former IS captives—his client was a “simple ISIS fighter” and not a member of the “Beatles” hostage-taking group.
MacMahon told Forbes in an email he “respect[s] the jury’s decision” and it is “up to Mr. elSheikh to decide if he wants to appeal.”
Tangent
Elsheikh was captured in early 2018 by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces and transferred to the United States in late 2020. He’s the only member of the “Beatles” to face trial in a U.S. court: Alexanda Kotey was captured alongside Elsheikh but pleaded guilty last year, and the cell’s alleged ringleader—Mohammed Emwazi—was purportedly killed during a U.S. airstrike in Syria in 2015.
Key Background
The kidnappings associated with the “Beatles” drew international outrage for their brutality: IS released videos of its members beheading Sotloff, Foley and Kassig, and Mueller was reportedly sexually abused by IS’ now-dead leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. As IS captured huge portions of Iraq and Syria in 2013 and 2014 and exploited power vacuums created by the Syrian Civil War, the group led an extensive online propaganda campaign aimed at recruiting foreign fighters—including some Americans and other Western natives. Last year, the Department of Justice charged a Canadian man with narrating a series of violent English-language recruitment videos. The group—which seeks to establish a global caliphate governed by its radical religious beliefs—reached its maximum size in 2014, controlling major population centers like the Iraqi city of Mosul, but IS’ territorial control has been largely extinguished amid pushback from American, Iraqi, Kurdish, Iranian and other forces.
Surprising Fact
Elsheikh admitted to guarding hostages and assisting with ransom demands in interviews with the Washington Post and other news outlets following his 2018 capture. Since then, he has claimed those confessions were coerced.
Further Reading
Feds Charge Narrator Of Infamous English-Language Islamic State Propaganda Videos (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2022/04/14/jury-convicts-british-isis-member-for-role-in-kidnapping-americans-including-murdered-reporter-james-foley/