Jury choice within the trial of El Shafee Elsheikh started Tuesday on the US Federal District Court docket in Alexandria, Virginia, with opening arguments slated for Wednesday.
Elsheikh, 33, stands accused within the murders of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and reduction employees Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller. He’s alleged to have been a member of a four-man cell inside the “Islamic State” (IS) terror group often known as “The Beatles” due to their British accents.
The group is assumed to have kidnapped at the very least 27 folks from some 15 nations in Syria between 2012 and 2015.
Brutal Islamist terror cell cultivated environment of ‘sadism’
Although some hostages have been ransomed by their governments, others have been beheaded and the movies thereof used for propaganda functions.
The group was know for its brutality. Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey, 37, are stated to have supervised detention amenities and engaged in a “extended sample of bodily and psychological violence in opposition to hostages,” that included water-boarding, electrical shocks and mock executions.
Quite a lot of the cell’s former captives are scheduled to testify throughout the trial, describing what Spanish photographer Ricardo Garcia Vilanova known as an environment of “sadism.” Held captive for six months in 2014, Vilanova says, “Torture and homicide have been day by day occurrences.”
Captured by Kurds in Syria, given to US in Iraq
Elsheikh and Kotey, who US authorities say have been additionally liable for conducting digital hostage negotiations, have been captured in January 2018 by Kurdish forces in Syria whereas making an attempt to flee into Turkey.
After being turned over to US forces in Iraq they have been charged with hostage taking, conspiracy to homicide US residents and supporting a terrorist group.
They have been flown to the US in October 2020 to face trial.
Kotey pleaded responsible to the murders of Foley, Sotloff, Kassig and Mueller in September 2021. He faces life in jail. A plea deal would have him spend the primary 15 years imprisoned within the US after which he could be extradited to the UK the place he would face additional costs.
UK citizenship revoked, remainder of IS ‘Beatles’ jailed or lifeless
US authorities say Elsheikh was born in Sudan and moved to the UK when he was a baby. He was radicalized and traveled to Syria to hitch IS in 2012.
The UK stripped each Elsheikh and Kotey of their citizenship in 2018.
British authorities did, nonetheless, block the lads’s extradition to the US till receiving ensures that authorities there wouldn’t search a dying penalty in opposition to both.
“Beatle” Aine Davis is at the moment serving a seven-year sentence in Turkey on terrorism costs with requires his extradition to face trial within the UK. Cell chief Mohammed Emwazi, often known as “Jihadi John” was killed in a November 2015 US drone strike in Syria.
US District Decide T.S. Ellis has stated he intends to finish jury choice Tuesday and proceed with opening arguments Wednesday.
js/wd (AFP, Reuters)