Charges against UK-born Isis pair shed light on brutality of terror group

The grisly allegations of hostage-taking, brutality and multiple murder in the lengthy charge sheet against Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh represent more than just a summary of US case against the British-born Isis followers.

It amounts to an indictment of Isis, the brutal terror organisation that drew murderous strength from adherents who came from around the world, and its dead leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

British-born pair charged in US over murder of Isis hostages

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Isis emerged on to the public stage in 2014, with Baghdadi’s proclamation of the so called caliphate, but by then Kotey and Elsheikh had been in Syria for two years already – and, according to the US, they had been radicalised in their home city of London.

They were arrested during a demonstration outside the US embassy in London on the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks. The protest was organised by Muslims Against Crusades – an organisation banned by the UK government two months later after it planned to disrupt Armistice Day celebrations.

Elsheikh arrived in Syria at the end of April 2012, initially to join the al Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front, followed by Kotey in August, who travelled over from Britain with Mohammed Emwazi, who became notorious for allegedly beheading a string of American and British hostages before being killed in a US airstrike in 2015.

They are accused of quickly switching their allegiance to Isis. At one point, in July 2014, Elsheikh is said to have described to a family member his participation in an Isis attack on the Syrian army in Raqqa.

The message was accompanied by images “of what appear to be decapitated heads of Syrian army soldiers”, the indictment adds.

As well as fighting, the three – and a fourth man, Aine Davis, who remains in custody in Turkey – are accused of participating in “a brutal hostage-taking scheme targeted American and European citizens” that began in late 2012 and ran until 2015.

A stark passage in the 24-page indictment accuses the two men of being involved in inflicting “pain, suffering, cruelty and mistreatment” listing a range of offences starting with murder, forced witnessing of murder and mock executions.

Hostages were allegedly forced to fight among themselves, were subjected “stress positions” such as standing for “sometimes for several days at a time” or, in an deliberate echo of torture techniques used by the US in Iraq a decade earlier, “waterboarding or the threat of waterboarding”.

The hostage-taking began in November 2012 with the kidnapping of James Foley, an American journalist, and John Cantlie, a British photographer and a string of other seizures followed in the following year, including that of British aid worker David Haines.

From November 2013, Kotey and Elsheikh are accused of engaging in hostage ransom negotiations by email, using “clear English with British phrases and idioms” in communications with the families of the American victims. It was also around this time that the two men, plus Emwazi and Davis, became known as “the Beatles”, a nickname given to them by the beleaguered hostages.

One email demanded €100m (£91m) from Foley’s family, the indictment says, and taunted them saying the US government had treated them like “worthless insects”. Another said: “We adopt a strict policy of ‘an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth’.”

Another US hostage, Kayla Mueller, was treated particularly brutally – with the indictment specifically accusing Baghdadi of repeatedly subjecting her to sexual violence from around October 2014 – while the hostage-takers demanded €5m for her release.

At one point, in April 2014, the indictment accuses Kotey, Elsheikh and Emwazi of forcing the hostages to watch the execution of a Syrian prisoner. Emwazi shot the prisoner in the head and several times in the body.

Meanwhile, Kotey “instructed the hostages to kneel at the side of the grave and witness the execution while holding handmade signs pleading for their release” while Elsheikh recorded the event on videotape.

The supposed negotiations went nowhere, and the indictment records that the hostage-taking took an even more violent turn in 2014, where, one by one, four Americans, two Britons – Haines and another aid worker, Alan Henning – and a Japanese citizen were beheaded, often by Emwazi, events recorded on videos and briefly released online.

At that point, the account ends, and eight charges against Kotey and Elsheikh are listed, including four of “hostage-taking resulting in death” against the four American victims: James Foley, Kayla Mueller, journalist Steven Sotloff and aid worker Peter Kassig.