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Ex-UK National Kotey Pleads Guilty to Helping Islamic State Murder Hostages - Reports

© AP Photo / Hussein MallaIn this March 30, 2018, file, photo, Alexanda Amon Kotey, left, and El Shafee Elsheikh, who were allegedly among four British jihadis who made up a brutal Islamic State cell dubbed "The Beatles," sit on a sofa during an interview with The Associated Press at a security center in Kobani, Syria. The IS could get a new injection of life if conflict erupts between the Kurds and Turkey in northeast Syria as the U.S. pulls its troops back from the area. The White House has said Turkey will take over responsibility for the thousands of IS fighters captured during the long campaign that defeated the militants in Syria. But it’s not clear how that could happen.
In this March 30, 2018, file, photo, Alexanda Amon Kotey, left, and El Shafee Elsheikh, who were allegedly among four British jihadis who made up a brutal Islamic State cell dubbed The Beatles, sit on a sofa during an interview with The Associated Press at a security center in Kobani, Syria. The IS could get a new injection of life if conflict erupts between the Kurds and Turkey in northeast Syria as the U.S. pulls its troops back from the area. The White House has said Turkey will take over responsibility for the thousands of IS fighters captured during the long campaign that defeated the militants in Syria. But it’s not clear how that could happen. - Sputnik International, 1920, 03.09.2021
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WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Former UK national Alexanda Kotey, who was part of the Daesh* terror group duo known as the Beatles, pleaded guilty in US court to charges of engaging in torture and murder of hostages in Syria, NBC News reported.
The report said on Thursday that Kotey pleaded guilty in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to hostage-taking resulting in death, conspiracy to commit murder against US citizens abroad and conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists.
The report said Kotey and his associate El Shafee Elsheikh could face a sentence of life in prison as US prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty as a precondition for cooperation with their colleagues in the United Kingdom, who extradited them to the United States.
The indictment alleges that Kotey, Elsheikh, as well as the now-deceased accomplice Mohamed Emwazi and another UK citizen currently incarcerated in Turkey, became Islamic State fighters participated in the abduction of American and other hostages in Syria from 2012 until 2015.
The men allegedly tortured hostages, including US citizens James Wright Foley, Kayla Jean Mueller, Steven Joel Sotloff and Peter Edward Kassig.
The Syrian Democratic Forces captured Kotey and Elsheikh in January of 2018 as they attempted to escape to Turkey. Emwazi was killed in a US airstrike conducted in November of 2015 in Syria.
*Daesh (also known as ISIS/ISIL/IS) is a terrorist organization outlawed in Russia and many other states.
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