Active in Syria from 2012 to 2015, the “Beatles” of the Islamic State organization oversaw the detention of at least 27 journalists and humanitarian workers from around the world.
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The British accent he shared with the other members of his group had earned them the nickname “Beatles”. Alexanda Kotey, a member of a cell of kidnappers from the Islamic State (IS) group, was sentenced on Friday April 29 to life imprisonment by a federal court in the United States.
This 38-year-old former British national pleaded guilty in September, admitting his responsibility in the death of four American hostages in Syria and, more broadly, in the kidnapping and torture of around twenty Westerners.
Also a member of this cell, El Shafee el-Sheikh, arrested with him by Syrian Kurdish forces in 2018, was found guilty in April after a grueling trial and will be sentenced this summer.
Active in Syria from 2012 to 2015, the “Beatles” of the Islamic State organization supervised the detention of at least 27 journalists and humanitarian workers from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy, Germany , Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Japan, New Zealand and Russia. A dozen were executed and their deaths were staged in IS propaganda videos that shocked the world.