Brit ISIS terrorists known as ‘The Beatles’ face death penalty as pair set to be extradited to US to face court
TWO British ISIS fighters from a cell dubbed ‘The Beatles’ are set to be extradited to the US and could face the death penalty.
London-born Alexanda Kotey, 35, and British national El Shafee Elsheikh, 31, have been in custody since being seized in Syria in February last year.
The pair were captured by Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and have been in custody ever since.
Their two “Beatle” colleagues – including ‘Jihadi John’ Mohammed Emwazi – were both killed fighting for ISIS.
Yesterday, it was announced that Kotey and Elsheikh have been placed in US custody and moved out of Syria to a “secure location”.
Donald Trump described the pair, who have been linked to a series of hostage beheadings, as the “worst of the worst”.
The pair have been stripped of their British citizenship and the Crown Prosecution Service decided there was insufficient evidence to prosecute them in the UK.
But US officials suspect both men “participated in the detention, exploitation and execution of Western detainees”.
They could face the death penalty if found guilty in a US court.
Trump announced on Wednesday evening that the US was taking custody of some of the most hardened terrorists.
“We are taking some of the most dangerous ISIS fighters out and we’re putting them in different locations where it’s secure,” he said.
“In addition, the Kurds are watching, and if the Kurds don’t watch, Turkey will watch. They don’t want those people out any more than we do.
“But we have taken a certain number of ISIS fighters who are particularly bad and we’ve wanted to make sure nothing happened to them with respect to getting out.”
Who were the ISIS Beatles?
Mohammed Emwazi (Jihadi John):
Emwazi fronted a number of IS propaganda videos where Western hostages were shown executed.
Originally from Kuwait, he was educated in north London, and graduated from the University of Westminster in 2009 in computer programming.
In the UK he came under surveillance from intelligence services after travelling to Tanzania and Kuwait.
He was linked with a number of high-profile suspected jihadists that MI5 were tracking.
His family reported him missing in 2013.
In 2014 he appeared in number of videos where Western hostages including US journalist James Foley and UK aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning appeared to be beheaded.
The last known video appearance from him was January 2015.
He was killed in a US drone strike on November 12, 2015.
Alexanda Kotey:
He attended the same al-Manaar mosque in west London as Emwazi.
Kotey was identified as one of the gang by the US state department, which said he was likely to have been a recruiter of UK nationals to the group.
He was captured by members of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Aine Davis:
He was arrested near Istanbul in 2015, and convicted in Turkey in 2017 of being a senior member of a terrorist organisation.
In London he had lived in Hammersmith and had a number of drug conviction.
In 2006 he was jailed for possessing a firearm.
After converting to Islam, he changed his name to Hamza and met Emwazi.
The two were part of a group that radicalised Muslims living in London. He left the UK to join ISIS in 2013.
After being arrested he denied being part of the terror group, or “the Beatles” cell.
El Shafee Elsheikh:
The son of Sudanese refugees, Elsheikh went to Syria in 2012 and joined al-Qaeda there before aligning himself with ISIS.
He and Kotey were said to have been detained after Kurdish fighters suspected they were foreign fighters.
Emwazi fronted a number of ISIS propaganda videos where Western hostages were shown executed.
In 2014 he appeared in number of videos where Western hostages including US journalist James Foley and UK aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning appeared to be beheaded.
He was killed in a US drone strike on November 12, 2015.
