[AlMonitor] Prosecutors rested their case Tuesday against an alleged member of the notorious Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
kidnap-and-murder cell known as the "Beatles."
El Shafee Elsheikh, 33, declined the opportunity to testify in his own defense at his trial in a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia.
Asked by Judge T.S. Ellis if he wanted to take the stand, Elsheikh said "No," the first time his voice had been heard during the two-week trial.
Elsheikh is charged with the murders of American freelance journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and aid workers Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig, and suspected of the kidnapping of nearly 20 other Westerners in Syria.
Ten European journalists, relief workers and Syrians held hostage by the "Beatles" have testified over the past few days of their brutal treatment at their captors' hands.
Elsheikh's lawyers declined to cross-examine any of the witnesses and presented only 20 minutes of excerpts from interviews he gave to media outlets as his defense.
The interviews were conducted after Elsheikh and another alleged "Beatle," Alexanda Amon Kotey, were captured in January 2018 by a Kurdish militia in Syria.
Unlike now, Elsheikh acknowledged in the interviews that he had interactions with the Western hostages, who dubbed the hostage-takers the "Beatles" because of their British accents.
Elsheikh's lawyers contend that he lied about being a "Beatle" in the interviews so he would be transferred to the United States instead of being put on trial in Iraq, where he would have faced a certain death sentence
 ...the barbaric practice of sentencing a murderer to be punished for as long as his/her/its victim is dead...
The final former hostage to testify was Danish photographer Daniel Rye Ottosen, who recounted how he was given 25 blows for his 25th anniversary.
He also recalled having a knife placed against his throat and a gun thrust into his mouth.
The prosecution and defense are to deliver their closing arguments on Wednesday, and the case will go to the jury.
Elsheikh and Kotey were turned over to US forces in Iraq following their capture. They were flown to Virginia in 2020 to face charges of hostage-taking, conspiracy to murder US citizens and supporting a terrorist organization.
Kotey pleaded guilty in September 2021 and is facing life in prison.
The other "Beatle," Mohammed Emwazi, the notorious executioner known as "Jihadi John," was killed by a US dronezap in Syria in 2015.
A young Yazidi woman testified on Monday that American aid worker Kayla Mueller told her she was raped by former Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and threatened with death if she tried to escape.
Lia Mulla, who was captured by Islamic State (IS) members in August 2014 as she tried to flee Iraq's Mount Sinjar with her family, testified through a translator on Monday at the trial of El Shafee Elsheikh, who was allegedly one of Mueller's IS jailers.
Mueller, an aid worker from Arizona, was captured by IS in August 2013 while accompanying her Syrian boyfriend on a trip to a hospital in Aleppo, where he was contracted to repair a satellite dish. She was initially held by the "Beatles" but then was allegedly turned over to Baghdadi, the IS leader who died during a US special forces raid in 2019.
Mulla said she was taken by IS to various locations with other young women after being captured. Eventually, she ended up in a prison where Mueller was being detained. They communicated "mostly with their hands," she said, and a few words of Arabic.
"One day they took her and when they brought her back she was really afraid," Mulla said. "They had told her that IS wanted to marry us off, and if we were to try to run away they would kill us."
A couple of days later, Mulla said she was taken along with Mueller and another Yazidi girl to the home of Abu Sayyaf, a top Baghdadi lieutenant, where they would "treat us like slaves."
- 'DIRTY HOUSE' -
After a week there, she said they were taken to the "dirty house... the place were they took maiden of tender yearss and raped them."
She said Baghdadi came one night and took Mueller away.
When Mueller returned the next morning, "she was very sad, she was very nervous, she was crying," Mulla said. "She had been raped and threatened that if she tried to run away he would kill her."
Mulla said she decided to try to escape and asked Mueller to join her but she declined. "She was afraid that if she was captured, she would be beheaded," she said.
But Mueller asked Mulla to "tell the world" about her if she managed to make it to freedom. Mulla said she slipped out a window, climbed on a generator to get over a wall and ran for a long time. After her escape, she said her brother put her in touch with a friend who was a translator for the Americans and she told them about Mueller.
IS announced Mueller's death in February 2015 and said she was killed in a Jordanian Arclight airstrike
 ...KABOOM! ...
, a claim that was disputed by US authorities.
Foley, Sotloff and Kassig were murdered by IS and videos of their deaths released by the group for propaganda purposes.
Elsheikh and another "Beatle," Alexanda Amon Kotey, were captured in January 2018 by a Kurdish militia in Syria and turned over to US forces in Iraq. They were flown to Virginia in 2020 to face charges of hostage-taking, conspiracy to murder US citizens and supporting a terrorist organization.
Kotey pleaded guilty in September 2021 and is facing life in prison.
"Beatles" executioner Mohammed Emwazi was killed by a US drone in Syria in 2015.
Elsheikh has denied the charges and his lawyers claim his arrest is a case of mistaken identity.
A former Islamic State group member turned cooperating witness has told a US court that an ex-jihadist on federal trial was clearly "more important" than other fighters.
Omer Kuzu testified on Monday that he met El Shafee Elsheikh on at least five occasions. He said while they did not talk much, Mr Elsheikh had an air of importance. Mr Elsheikh, 33, is the highest profile IS fighter to face trial in the US.
Mr Kuzu, who spent four-and-a-half years as an IS member, testified at Mr Elsheikh's trial as part of a plea deal with the US government.
The 26-year-old left his home in Dallas, Texas at age 18 in October 2014, flew to The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire...
and was later smuggled into Syria. He joined the telecommunications office in Raqqa, Syria, then "the capital of IS". He told the court he did "typical IT work" to support the group's battlefield operations.
He was captured by Syrian forces in 2019, and handed over to the FBI
 ...Formerly one of the world's premier criminal investigation organizations, something for a nation to be proud of. Now it's a political arm of the Deep State oligarchy that is willing to trump up charges, suppress evidence, or take out insurance policies come election time...
. He pleaded guilty in Texas in September 2020 to conspiracy to provide material support to IS.
On the stand on Monday, Mr Kuzu said that while other guards wore traditional Afghan clothes, Mr Elsheikh wore a green military uniform and always carried a Glock pistol. Having a Glock was uncommon, he said, calling it "a symbol of Isis aristocracy".
He said Mr Elsheikh was also "quiet, reserved, almost secretive", which he believed indicated he didn't want to be a target of foreign intelligence agencies.
Mr Kuzu appeared in court in a teal prison jumpsuit. He spoke clearly, often leaning forward into the microphone and saying "yes sir" in response to questions. Asked to identify Mr Elsheikh, he pointed at the defendant and described his clothing. The defendant, always wearing a disposable black face mask, pulled it down during the identification process.
Identification is a key part of the trial. The defence argue Mr Elsheikh was a "simple Isis fighter" not one of the so-called Beatles, and therefore should not be held responsible for what that turban cell did.
Under cross-examination, Mr Kuzu admitted that Mr Elsheikh had never explicitly told him about himself or what he did for IS. But he said "his work was right in front of my eyes".
He also described Mr Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey - believed to be another "Beatle" who in September pleaded guilty to multiple charges relating to the murder of four American hostages in Syria - as "some sort of a duo or tag team". |
...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund...
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Mohammed Emwazi, a member of the group who earned notoriety as "