Updated15 avril 2022, 09:50
El Shafee el-Sheikh, a member of the sinister “Beatles” cell within IS, was found guilty in a US court on Thursday of playing a role in the kidnapping and death of four hostages in Syria.
Diane Foley, the mother of slain journalist James Foley, reacts to the verdict on April 14, 2022 in Alexandria.
Getty Images via AFP
Accused of being a member of a bloodthirsty trio, nicknamed “Beatles” by the hostages because of their British accent, El Shafee el-Sheikh was on trial in Alexandria, near Washington, for the capture and death of journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, as well as aid workers Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig, and for supporting a terrorist organization.
The jury in this trial in federal court took only 12 hours to convict him of the eight counts once morest him. He did not react to the announcement of the verdict, while members of the families of the victims, present at the hearing, had tears in their eyes.
33-year-old El Shafee el-Sheikh chose to remain silent throughout this first major trial once morest the extremist group in the United States, which lasted two weeks. Through the voice of his lawyer, he admitted having joined the ranks of EI while denying being one of the “Beatles”.
“It’s a day we didn’t need bombs or bullets to get justice,” said Diane Foley, who fought to free her son who was eventually executed in 2014. really that justice prevailed”.
“Monstrous Chapter”
Carl Mueller, the father of the young humanitarian kidnapped in 2013 and declared dead in 2015 by IS, also welcomed the outcome of the trial. “We have all seen the best of the American justice system,” he said alongside his wife, Marsha, who gave poignant testimony last week.
His sentence is due on August 12. He faces life imprisonment, a sentence “probably worse than the death penalty,” said Carl Mueller.
“A terrorist crime opens a gaping wound in a society, only justice can put an end to such a monstrous chapter”, commented the French journalist Nicolas Hénin, hostage between 2013 and 2014 and who had testified to the cruelty of his jailers. “She does not bring back the dead, does not heal all wounds, but she soothes. It designates who is guilty, who is victim and it brings back some order,” he said in a message to AFP.
Never identified
On Wednesday, before the jury’s deliberation, prosecutor Raj Parekh assured that the prosecution had assembled “a mosaic of evidence” demonstrating that he was part of a “terrifying and inhuman conspiracy”, which “resulted in death”. of American, British and Japanese captives.
For the prosecution, El Shafee el-Sheikh was ‘Ringo’ while some hostages seemed to think he was ‘George’. He was never really identified as a member of the group by the ex-hostages called to the bar, who had always seen the members of this masked trio.
El Shafee el-Sheikh had been arrested along with Alexanda Kotey, another of the “Beatles”, by Kurdish forces in Syria in 2018. In detention, he had admitted to journalists to having been “without compassion” with hostages placed under his supervision . They had been transferred to the United States for trial but Alexanda Kotey chose to plead guilty and will be sentenced on April 29. To try them, Washington had promised not to seek the death penalty.
The other member of the group, Mohammed Emwazi, was killed in a drone attack in 2015. Nicknamed “Jihadi John”, he was identified following appearing with a butcher’s knife in IS propaganda videos featuring scene of the beheading of Western hostages.
(AFP)
