Skip to main content

Islamic State's ‘Beatles’ could finally face justice for alleged role in beheading Americans

Kotey and Elsheikh are the remaining half of a British cell that also included Mohammed Emwazi, who died in a CIA drone strike in 2015, and Aine Davis, who was sentenced to prison on terrorism charges in Turkey in 2017.
Six years ago this month, the Islamic State (IS) published its first video in what would become the prevailing image of the war: a jumpsuit-clad hostage kneeling before a knife-wielding executioner. For the parents of slain Americans James Foley, Steven Sotloff, Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller, justice has remained elusive.

But two of the families told Al-Monitor they were given fresh hope after a phone call with Attorney General William Barr on Aug. 6. Barr told them federal prosecutors will take the death penalty off the table as a potential sentence for two men alleged to have tortured and killed foreign hostages. News of the call was first reported by NBC News.

This decision would make it possible for the United Kingdom, the suspects’ home country, to share evidence that could be key to putting El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey behind bars in the United States. If the British government doesn't provide its evidence within six weeks, Barr told the families that Kotey and Elsheikh may be prosecuted in Iraq where they are currently detained.

RELATED UK gave US information on Isis suspects without death penalty assurances unlawfully, Supreme Court rules

"At this point, the ball’s in their court," said Carl Mueller, whose daughter Kayla was imprisoned by the group and raped by then-IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. "If [the British government] doesn't want to do anything for their citizens that were murdered, well, so be it. Let us do it."

"I think [Barr’s] actually given them an ultimatum. The death penalty is off the table for this period of time. If you don’t make a decision, they might leave them in Iraq."

The attorney general said he would be speaking with UK Home Secretary Priti Patel ahead of a public announcement this week, according to Diane Foley, mother of one of the victims. US Justice Department Spokesperson Alison Kjergaard declined to confirm whether the administration’s position on the death penalty had moved, but she told Al-Monitor that “the department is committed to ensuring justice for the victims.”

RELATED AG Barr promises to rule out death penalty for ISIS 'Beatles', victims' families say

Two years after their capture by US-allied Kurdish forces in Syria, Elsheikh and Kotey have yet to step foot in a courtroom, despite admitting to at least some of their crimes during multiple interviews with foreign journalists.

The delay is not for lack of evidence. The British government has more than 600 witness statements collected by the Metropolitan Police, in addition to phone calls and other intelligence intercepts on the two men.

“It’s clear that the US does not have that evidence and the UK does,” said Toby Cadman, a British human rights lawyer advising Diane Foley. “I think it is a credible concern.”

The UK government initially handed over some materials to American prosecutors without assurances on the death penalty, which Britain abolished in 1998. The British Supreme Court ruled in March that the home secretary’s decision to share information in a trial where capital punishment is a possible outcome had breached the country’s data protection law.

The parents of the four American victims have called on the Donald Trump administration both privately and publicly to spare Kotey and Elsheikh from the death penalty so that prosecutors can build the strongest case possible using British-supplied evidence.

“They’ve listened to us, taken meetings with us. And we’ve tried to be patient,” said Diane Foley. “This August will be six years since Jim was killed. It’s really time to take action.”

Foley's son, a freelance journalist who covered the Syrian civil war for outlets including GlobalPost and Agence France-Presse, was the first hostage publicly beheaded by the group after the US government failed to secure his release.

“This administration speaks of law and order,” Foley said. “To me, our American justice system is a perfect way to give a strong message to any terrorist seeking to kidnap or hurt our citizens.”

Dubbed “the Beatles” by their victims due to their accents, Kotey and Elsheikh are the remaining half of a British cell that also included Mohammed Emwazi, who died in a CIA drone strike in 2015, and Aine Davis, who was sentenced to prison on terrorism charges in Turkey in 2017. 

The US State Department says the group was responsible for beheading some two dozen hostages and subjecting their victims to exceptionally cruel torture methods, including waterboarding, electric shock and mock executions.

Former hostages have said some of the worst treatment came from masked, British-accented jailers matching their description, but Kotey and Elsheikh have downplayed their role. In interviews, they claimed their duties largely consisted of collecting email addresses and other information from the hostages, which would later be used in ransom negotiations.

Kotey and Elsheikh, whose British citizenship has been revoked, remain in US military custody.  The pair are currently held without charge at Ain al-Asad air base in Iraq.

“It kind of gives them a celebrity status and lets them become martyrs for IS,” said Marsha Mueller, Kayla’s mother. “Just bring them here, put them on trial, put them away and let them be forgotten.”

The Muellers believe a trial by jury can shed some light on what happened to Kayla. Unlike Foley, Sotloff and Kassig, whose killings were documented on video, the circumstances surrounding their daughter's death are unclear.

“The US let all of our families down,” Marsha Mueller said, referring to the previous administration's no-concessions policy and its widely criticized handling of the hostages. The Donald Trump administration, she says, “knows how we feel, and they are listening to us.”

“We would all prefer a life sentence in a supermax prison,” Carl Mueller said of Kotey and Elsheikh, whose trials he said he would attend.

“These guys shouldn’t have rights. Our children didn’t have rights. We don’t have rights,” he added. “Marsha and I got a life sentence.”

NB: The views and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of Death Penalty News

Source: al-monitor.com, Elizabeth Hagedorn, August 10, 2020


⚑ | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.


Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!



"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

Most viewed (Last 7 days)

'No Warning': The Death Penalty In Japan

Stakes for wrongful convictions are high in Japan, where the death penalty has broad public support despite criticism over how it is carried out. Tokyo: Capital punishment in Japan is under scrutiny again after the world's longest-serving death row prisoner, Iwao Hakamada, was awarded $1.4 million in compensation this week following his acquittal last year in a retrial. Stakes for wrongful convictions are high in Japan, where the death penalty has broad public support despite international criticism over how it is carried out.

Louisiana's First Nitrogen Execution Reflects Broader Method Shift

Facing imminent execution by lethal gas earlier this week, Jessie Hoffman Jr. — a Louisiana man convicted of abducting, raping and murdering a 28-year-old woman in 1996 — went to court with a request: Please allow me to be shot instead. In a petition filed with the U.S. Supreme Court on March 16 seeking a stay of his execution by nitrogen hypoxia, a protocol that had yet to be tested in the state, Hoffman requested execution by firing squad as an alternative.

A second South Carolina death row inmate chooses execution by firing squad

Columbia, S.C. — A South Carolina death row inmate on Friday chose execution by firing squad, just five weeks after the state carried out its first death by bullets. Mikal Mahdi, who pleaded guilty to murder for killing a police officer in 2004, is scheduled to be executed April 11. Mahdi, 41, had the choice of dying by firing squad, lethal injection or the electric chair. He will be the first inmate to be executed in the state since Brad Sigmon chose to be shot to death on March 7. A doctor pronounced Sigmon dead less than three minutes after three bullets tore into his heart.

USA | Federal death penalty possible for Mexican cartel boss behind 1985 DEA agent killing

Rafael Caro Quintero, extradited from Mexico in 2022, appeared in Brooklyn court as feds weigh capital charges for the torture and murder of Agent Enrique Camarena NEW YORK — The death penalty is on the table for notorious drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, the so-called “narco of narcos” who orchestrated the torture and murder of a DEA agent in 1985, according to federal prosecutors. “It is a possibility. The decision has not yet been made, but it is going through the process,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Saritha Komatireddy said in Brooklyn Federal Court Wednesday.

South Carolina | Spiritual adviser of condemned inmate: 'We're more than the worst thing we've done'

(RNS) — When 67-year-old Brad Sigmon was put to death on March 7 in South Carolina for the murder of his then-girlfriend's parents, it was the first time in 15 years that an execution in the United States had been carried out by a firing squad. United Methodist minister Hillary Taylor, Sigmon's spiritual adviser since 2020, said the multifaceted, months long effort to save Sigmon's life, and to provide emotional and spiritual support for his legal team, and the aftermath of his execution has been a "whirlwind" said Taylor, the director of South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

Execution date set for prisoner transferred to Oklahoma to face death penalty

An inmate who was transferred to Oklahoma last month to face the death penalty now has an execution date. George John Hanson, also known as John Fitzgerald Hanson, is scheduled to die on June 12 for the 1999 murder of 77-year-old Mary Bowles.  The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on Tuesday set the execution date. The state’s Pardon and Parole Board has a tentative date of May 7 for Hanson’s clemency hearing, executive director Tom Bates said.

Inside Florida's Death Row: A dark cloud over the Sunshine State

Florida's death penalty system has faced numerous criticisms and controversies over the years - from execution methods to the treatment of Death Row inmates The Sunshine State remains steadfast in its enforcement of capital punishment, upholding a complex system that has developed since its reinstatement in 1976. Florida's contemporary death penalty era kicked off in 1972 following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Furman v. Georgia , which temporarily put a stop to executions across the country. Swiftly amending its laws, Florida saw the Supreme Court affirm the constitutionality of the death penalty in 1976's Gregg v. Georgia case.

Bangladesh | Botswana Woman Executed for Drug Trafficking

Dhaka, Bangladesh – Lesedi Molapisi, a Botswana national convicted of drug trafficking, was executed in Bangladesh on Friday, 21 March 2025. The 31-year-old was hanged at Dhaka Central Jail after exhausting all legal avenues to appeal her death sentence. Molapisi was arrested in January 2023 upon arrival at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka, where customs officials discovered 3.1 kilograms of heroin hidden in her luggage. Following a trial under Bangladesh’s Narcotics Control Act, she was sentenced to death in May 2024. Her execution was initially delayed due to political unrest in the country but was carried out last week.

Oklahoma executes Wendell Grissom

Grissom used some of his last words on Earth to apologize to everyone he hurt and said that he prays they can find forgiveness for their own sake. As for his execution, he said it was a mercy. Oklahoma executed Wendell Arden Grissom on Thursday for the murder of 23-year-old Amber Matthews in front of her best friend’s two young daughters in 2005.  Grissom, 56, was executed by lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester and pronounced dead at 10:13 a.m. local time, becoming the first inmate to be put to death by the state in 2025 and the ninth in the United States this year. 

564 People On Death Row In India, Highest Since The Turn Of The Century

In 90% of of all death penalty sentences in 2024, trial courts imposed sentences in the absence of adequate information about the accused, finds a recent report Bengaluru: Following the uproar and the widespread protests after the August 2024 rape and murder of a medical professional in Kolkata’s RG Kar hospital, there were demands for death penalty for the accused. The state government passed the Aparajita Woman and Child (West Bengal Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill 2024 (awaiting presidential assent) which included mandatory death sentence for rape which results in death of the victim or if the victim is left in a vegetative state, despite such a mandatory sentence being unconstitutional.