Saturday, October 10, 2020

Singing From A Different Hymnal

“The case we are announcing today highlights when we have the evidence to do so, we will take responsibility for prosecuting those non-US citizens who have injured or killed Americans anywhere in the world." 
“If you have American blood in your veins, or you have American blood on your hands, you will face American justice."
"We decided that if we were going to do this case, we were going to tell the fullest story we could, of what these defendants did, and we were going to put on the strongest case possible."
"And with the British evidence I think we can do that very well."
Assistant attorney general John Demers, Federal Court, Alexandria, Virginia
 
“James, Peter, Kayla and Steven were kidnapped, tortured, beaten, starved, and murdered by members of the Islamic State in Syria. Now our families can pursue accountability for these crimes against our children in a US court."
James Foley Legacy Foundation  

"The pain we experienced as families was excruciating when we lost our loved ones, and the last three years have been a long, horrible waiting game."
"I, like the other families, am relieved that the fate of these two men is closer to being decided but this is just the beginning.:
"It was a big win for us knowing that the US courts would be taking this forward because we have been waiting years since they were first detained."
Mike Haines, brother of David Haines, humanitarian worker, Perth, Scotland
Image provided by the Alexandria Sheriff’s Office showing Alexanda Kotey (left) and El Shafee Elsheikh. The pair have been held in US military custody since October last year. Composite: Alexandria Sheriff's Office via AP

It was six years ago that the Islamic State henchmen beheaded American hostages, making videos of the atrocities and proudly circulating them as slickly-produced 'public relations' bulletins of the righteousness of their religious commitment to jihad. Sickening they may have been, but they were a source of pride to ISIL, and they were a draw within the international community, succeeding in inciting new recruits from abroad to join the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq in their bold, brave new world of universal Islamist jihad.
 
Now, finally, two of the men whose British accents were heard on those videos, earning them the title of 'The Beatles', are being tried in an American court for their crimes. The two, Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh were flown to the U.S. from Iraq. As British citizens they could have been tried in Britain, but the U.K. washed their hands of the pair, removing their citizenship and obligingly shipping them off, as requested, to the U.S. for trial, since they had murdered American citizens.
 
They had been captured as war prisoners, by Kurdish fighters who then turned them over to the U.S. military which had held them in Iraq. Their families had hoped for their prosecution to take place in the United Kingdom, where the two malefactors had grown up, with its relatively lighter judicial punishment than in the United States where harsher criminal penalties are typically enacted. Despite withdrawing their citizenship, the U.K. prior to allowing the two men to be tried in the U.S., sought assurance they would not be given the death penalty.
 
They are charged with hostage taking resulting in death, conspiracy to murder U.S. citizens outside the United States, conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, and other, related conspiracy charges. Britain is prepared to hand over evidence to the U.S. prosecution, having been given judicial clearance to do so. Although it wasn't either of these two men who had used a knife to saw through the necks of their victims in beheading them, they acted as enablers.
 
The man who had wielded the knife, Mohammed Emwazi had been killed in 2015 in a drone strike. He was the figure known as 'Jihadi John', raised in West London, and chose to become a jihadi butcher. A fourth Londoner, Aine Davis made up the quartet that became known as 'The Beatles'. Davis is imprisoned in Turkey. Elsheikh and Kotey admitted demanding information from hostages for ransom negotiations. They had been involved with Americans James Foley, Kayla Mueller, Steven Sotloff, Peter Kassig and other Western prisoners subsequently killed, but denied having anything to do with the executions.
 
According to the indictment they were directly involved in hostage torture as well as in their deaths. When Emwazi had executed a Syrian prisoner, Elsheikh had videotaped the killing while Kotey instructed other hostages to kneel and hold handmade signs pleading for their release. The bodies of the murdered have never been found.
 
Alexanda Kotey, left, and El Shafee Elsheikh, who were allegedly among four British fighters who made up a brutal ISIL/ISIS cell dubbed ‘The Beatles’, have said that their home country’s revoking of their citizenship denies them a fair trial [File: Hussein Malla/AP Photo]

 

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posted by Pieface @ Saturday, October 10, 2020

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