El Shafee Elsheikh is the most notorious and highest-ranking member of the Islamic State group to ever be convicted in a U.S. court. He was formally sentenced to life in prison Friday for a leading role in the beheading deaths of American hostages. He led an Islamic State hostage-taking scheme that took about two dozen Westerners captive a decade ago. Their appearance, always in masks, invoked dread among the hostages for the sadism they displayed.
The U.S. agreed not to pursue the death sentence as part of a deal that ensured extradition of Elsheikh and Kotey. Emwazi was killed in a drone strike. The life sentence was a foregone conclusion after a jury convicted him of hostage taking. ‘This prosecution unmasked the barbaric and sadistic ISIS Beatles,’ an official said. The convictions relate to the deaths of James Foley, Steven Sotloff, Peter Kassig, and Kayla Mueller. Mueller was forced into slavery and raped multiple times by Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi before she was killed.
Victims of Elsheikh and the Beatles gave voice to what they experienced at a hearing in New York. Danish photographer Daniel Rye Ottosen, who was released after a ransom was paid, said the worst moments were times of silence during and after captivity. ‘We lack the vocabulary of such pain,’ he said, paraphrasing Dante’s Inferno.
‘I knew I could only concentrate on my pain, which is much easier than being alone with your thoughts,’ James Foley writes in his last letter to his family. His mother says she hopes the trial of Sheikh Ahmed el-Elsheikh will send a message to other would-be hostage takers. ‘Hatred truly overwhelmed your humanity,’ she told Elsheikh on Friday, the eighth anniversary of James Foley’s beheading.
Elsheikh’s lawyers had argued that his confessions should have been ruled inadmissible because of alleged mistreatment. At trial, surviving hostages testified that they dreaded the Beatles’ appearance in their prisons. Elsheikh and the other Beatles played a key role in the hostage negotiations. They routinely beat and tortured the hostages, forcing them to fight each other to the point of passing out.
Judge TS Ellis III declines to make any recommendation to the Bureau of Prisons. ‘The behavior of this defendant can only be described as horrific, barbaric, brutal, callous and, of course, criminal,’ Ellis says. Outside court, Mueller’s parents say they are still seeking information about her death and to recover her remains.
Marsha Mueller and Diane Foley, two of the victims’ relatives, say they have been able to meet with convicted child molester Jim Kotey. ‘He did articulate some remorse and I was grateful for that,’ Diane Foley said. Marsha Mueller declined to comment on the conversation but said it was beneficial to her.
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