Justice takes toll on victims’ families in trial of Isis ‘Beatle’ El Shafee Elsheikh

For 12 days the parents an Isis murder gang’s victims sat through some of the most disturbing evidence ever heard in an American courtroom to see the terrorist who tormented their children brought to justice.

The trial and conviction of El Shafee Elsheikh, a former British citizen convicted of eight charges related to the kidnap, detention and death of American, British and Japanese hostages in Syria, was a landmark in judicial history but took a heavy toll on the families.

The parents campaigned for Elsheikh, 33, and fellow gang member Alexanda Kotey, 38, to be brought before a US court as opposed to a military tribunal like previous terror suspects. Kotey pleaded guilty to all charges and will be sentenced later this month.

Carl Mueller, 70, the father of Kayla Mueller, the youngest of the murdered hostages, missed two days of the case because it exacerbated his heart condition, he told The Times.

 “Some of the testimonies were just unbelievable, it was like being in a science fiction movie,” he said after hearing accounts from former hostages of beatings, electric shocks, simulated drowning and other torture such as being made to fight each other.

His 26-year-old daughter, a human rights worker, was kept as a sex slave for the Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Elsheikh denied being part of the gang nicknamed the “Beatles” by the hostages, but was unanimously convicted on Thursday in court in Alexandria, Virginia.

 “I spent two days in the hospital and the next day when I came back to court I got a panic attack just walking into the building,” Mueller said. “I have overcome that now — this whole trial has been extremely difficult but this is what the American families asked for. We asked for them to be brought here to be tried in the American justice system and given a fair trial.”

He praised Bill Barr, the attorney-general under the Trump administration, for making a deal with the UK authorities to receive crucial evidence in return for waiving the death penalty as a punishment.

Mueller remains bitter with President Obama and the US policy of refusing even to negotiate with the hostage-takers. He believes that the ransom of $5 million demanded for Kayla, far lower than the $100 million asked for some of the American male captives, meant that a deal was on the table for her release.

 “We followed everything they told us to do like blind sheep,” he said. “It was after a very long time in her captivity before she was taken and really abused. Had we taken the cost of one day’s bombing raid, we could have got her.”

Diane Foley, 73, the mother of James Foley, a journalist who was the first shown in the Isis beheading videos, said that the trial was the latest “exhausting” episode of a long ordeal. She was in court for the verdict but was not accompanied by her husband, who, she said, had had enough of the process. “This November will be ten years since Jim was taken captive so it has just been a gruelling, exhausting, time,” she said.

She runs a foundation in her son’s name to campaign for the release of detained Americans around the world, including three being held in Russia.

 “This is not just about four Americans who died in Syria, it is about this recurring issue of US nationals being taken hostage or wrongfully detained and how our government deals with this. How many more have to die?” she said.

 “James’s legacy matters to me and if there is one thing he would have wanted it is something better for the next guy, the next wrongfully detained British or American citizen, as opposed to spending millions on a trial after they have been tortured and beheaded. So that’s my obsession, I don’t want this to keep happening to families.”

The close family members of victims have, in the main, wanted to move on from the awful events that upended their lives, she said. “Jim was held captive for almost two years and it was and continues to be a very painful time in our life,” she added.

“[Most of the other parents] really want it behind them, [including] my husband and several of our children — they’re all wonderful, they all have their own families, their own careers — but this is my way of healing, if you will. And they’ve been wonderful about loving me and respecting me for that.”

Who are the Isis members known as the “Beatles”?

The nickname “Beatles” was first suggested by the British photojournalist John Cantlie, a hostage whose fate is unknown, as a way of referring to the most sadistic Isis jailers, who had British accents.

Former hostages told the court during Elsheikh’s trial that the name caught on as a way of discussing the small group, primarily of three British men, and distinguishing between them.

Elsheikh was referred to as Ringo, according to Federico Motka, 39, an Italian-born aid worker who was captured along with his British colleague David Haines in Syria in 2013 and held for 14 months.

 “It was a nickname. We started calling them the Brits but we felt if anyone listened, it was kind of stupid because they would understand [we were talking about them] so we called them George, Ringo and John, who were the three there from day one,” Motka told the court in Alexandria.

Mohammed Emwazi, the Isis executioner seen wielding a knife while next to kneeling hostages in propaganda decapitation videos, became known as “Jihadi John”. Emwazi, 27, was killed by a US drone in an air strike in 2015.

Alexanda Kotey, 38, who was captured alongside Elshiekh by free Syrian forces in early 2018, was at times referred to as George, and at times as John, by different hostages.

The three, who knew each other from London before coming to fight for Isis in Syria in 2012, were the main members of the gang, the trial repeatedly heard.

Motka referred in court a couple of times to another “Beatle”, but made clear that he was not a core member. “Another British guy, we nicknamed him Paul. To all intents and purposes he was not ‘The Beatles’, it was just because he had a British accent,” Motka said. This is presumed to be Aine Davis, 38, another Londoner, who is serving a jail sentence in Turkey after being convicted for being a member of a terrorist group.

The court was played a clip from a video interview with Elsheikh in August 2019, when he was asked if there were four “Beatles”.

He told The Washington Post: “There don’t have to be four just because they said ‘The Beatles’. They probably couldn’t find any other English-speaking band that was three. Is there any?”