{"id":21925,"date":"2022-04-15T12:25:06","date_gmt":"2022-04-15T12:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tahrir2day.com\/news\/2022\/04\/15\/el-shafee-elsheikh-british-isis-member-convicted-on-all-counts-for-deadly-kidnapping-plot\/"},"modified":"2022-04-15T12:25:06","modified_gmt":"2022-04-15T12:25:06","slug":"el-shafee-elsheikh-british-isis-member-convicted-on-all-counts-for-deadly-kidnapping-plot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tahrir2day.com\/news\/2022\/04\/15\/el-shafee-elsheikh-british-isis-member-convicted-on-all-counts-for-deadly-kidnapping-plot\/","title":{"rendered":"El Shafee Elsheikh, British ISIS member, convicted on all counts for deadly kidnapping plot"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Alexandria, Virginia –<\/em> The Shafee Elsheikh<\/span>One of three British men accused of operating a brutal ISIS hostage-taking scheme has been convicted on all charges by a federal jury in Virginia for his role in the plot that killed four North Americans. Americans. <\/p>\n

A jury in Alexandria, Virginia, found Elsheikh guilty of eight counts, including four counts of hostage-taking that resulted in death, conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist organization. He faces life in prison, with a sentence set for Aug. 12.<\/p>\n

Known collectively as the “Beatles” for their British accent, Elsheikh and his co-conspirators Mohammed Emwazi and Alexanda Kotey worked together to kidnap and abuse more than two dozen Western hostages, according to prosecutors. He was convicted of plotting to assassinate American hostages James Foley, Peter Kassig, Kayla Mueller and Steven Sotloff.<\/p>\n

“This defendant put terror to terrorism himself,” U.S. Deputy Attorney General Raj Parekh said Wednesday during the final arguments.<\/p>\n

Foley, Kassig and Sotloff were beheaded in a series of horrific ISIS propaganda videos and images released in 2014. ISIS had claimed that Mueller was killed in an airstrike in 2015 while in Syria, but prosecutors on Wednesday they said they now believe ISIS killed her after detaining her. she as a slave and sexually abusing her for a year and a half.<\/p>\n

Elsheikh was not accused of committing the act of killing the hostages himself, but was accused of participating in the kidnapping and torture that led to the killing of the hostages. <\/p>\n

Diane Foley, James Foley’s mother, and Carl Mueller, Kayla Mueller’s father, spoke to reporters after the verdict. They were both glad that justice had been done.<\/p>\n

“I think there is relief. This has been an ordeal. Truly exhausting for many families. Exhausting emotionally and physically,” said Diane Foley. “I hope these four young Americans inspire other young Americans to have that kind of courage. That moral courage to dare to go out into the world, to care about others, to tell the truth.”<\/p>\n

Carl Mueller said the story of what happened to the victims “needs to be told generation after generation and not forgotten.”<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a small piece of justice that will help us heal a little bit, but I don\u2019t think there will be closure,\u201d he said. “We’re all close. I often refer to it as a club that no one wants to be in. Due to circumstances beyond our control we are in that club.” <\/p>\n

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Shafee Elsheikh seen in a courtroom sketch during the final arguments of his trial on Wednesday, April 14, 2022.<\/span><\/p>\n

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William J. Hennessy, Jr.<\/p>\n

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Elsheikh and Kotey were eventually captured together and detained by the Syrian Defense Forces before Britain agreed to extradite them to the United States for trial. Kotey has pleaded guilty to life imprisonment. Emwazi, known as “Jihadi John” and as the figure who carried out many of the hostage executions, he was killed in Syria<\/span> in 2015.<\/p>\n

During the trial, defense lawyer Nina Ginsberg did not deny that Elsheikh had traveled to Syria and joined ISIS or knew Emwazi and Kotey. However, he claimed that the government did not prove that Elsheikh was one of the three Beatles. The defense claims that he is only an ISIS soldier.<\/p>\n

“Mr Elsheikh was never identified in this room by any of the former hostages,” Ginsberg said.<\/p>\n

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