The Justice Department says it is willing to drop the threat of the death penalty as it works to convince the United Kingdom to allow two British-born Islamic State members dubbed the “Beatles” to be extradited to the United States to stand trial.
Attorney General William Barr sent a three-page letter to U.K. Home Minister Priti Patel this week to “provide an assurance that, if the United Kingdom grants our mutual legal assistance request, the United States will not seek the death penalty in any prosecutions it might bring against Alexanda Kotey or El Shafee Elsheikh, and, if imposed, the death penalty will not be carried out.”
Lady Hale of the British Supreme Court ruled in March that the government should cease assisting the U.S. with its case against Elsheikh and Kotey as long as the death penalty remains on the table, since the U.K. has abolished capital punishment.
“No further assistance should be given for the purpose of any proceedings against Mr. El Sheikh in the United States of America without the appropriate death penalty assurances,” the U.K. court ruled.
“I know that the United Kingdom shares our determination that there should be a full investigation and a criminal prosecution of Kotey and Elsheikh. These men are alleged to have been members of the terrorist group the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham and to have been involved in kidnappings, murders, and other violent crimes against the citizens of our two countries, as well as the citizens of other countries,” Barr said on Tuesday. “If a prosecution is to go forward in the United States, our prosecutors should have the important evidence that we have requested from the United Kingdom available to them in their efforts to hold Kotey and Elsheikh responsible for their terrorist crimes. If we receive the requested evidence and attendant cooperation from the United Kingdom, we intend to proceed with a United States prosecution.”
But Barr made it clear that “time is of the essence” and “further delay is an injustice to the families of the victims.” He said that Kotey and Elsheikh, who have been dubbed “Jihadi George” and “Jihadi Ringo,” would be transferred to Iraq to be prosecuted in the Iraqi justice system unless the litigation in the U.K. is quickly resolved and the U.K. agrees to hand over all appropriate evidence and to fully assist in the U.S. prosecution by Oct. 15.
In July, the parents of ISIS victims Kayla Mueller, James Foley, Peter Kassig, and Steven Sotloff, all abducted and killed by members of the terrorist group, penned a joint op-ed in the Washington Post urging the Trump administration to bring ISIS fighters held by the U.S. military overseas to the U.S. to stand trial.
“Some of the men who allegedly committed these atrocities are now in U.S. military custody in the Middle East. We implore President Trump, Attorney General William P. Barr, and the Justice Department to have the detainees brought to the United States to face trial,” the families wrote. “Like any grieving relatives, we want to know the full truth about what happened to our loved ones, and we want to see our children’s murderers held accountable. These things can happen only if the suspects are put on trial before a jury in an American court of law.”
The families said that ISIS members such as Mohammed Emwazi, also known as “Jihadi John,” and ISIS founder Abu Bakr al Baghdadi have already been killed but stressed that others, such as Elsheikh and Kotey, should still be tried.
Elsheikh and Kotey, currently being held in Iraq by the U.S. military, have admitted to being part of an ISIS terrorist cell responsible for the killings of U.S. humanitarian aid workers Mueller and Kassig, U.S. journalists Foley and Sotloff, British humanitarian aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, and others.
Also in July, NBC News reported Elsheikh and Kotey admitted they had been involved in Mueller’s imprisonment in Syria.
U.S. officials have said that Baghdadi raped Mueller before she was killed. The Special Forces team who took out Baghdadi in October 2019 dubbed their mission “Task Force 8-14,” named for Mueller’s birthday of Aug. 14, 1988.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was pressed on the issue during a late July hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“It’s a broad effort. I think we’re making progress. It’s the Department of Defense, their intelligence assets, the broader set of U.S. intelligence assets … and then working with important partners too, who want justice but have a different set of rules about how to think about that,” Pompeo said. “So working to convince them that proceeding to bring them to justice is the right approach.”
Last year, FBI Director Christopher Wray told the Senate that the FBI is “not giving up” on bringing “the Beatles” to the U.S.
ISIS’s short-lived, self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq began during the Obama administration following the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and was marked by attempted genocide, extreme violence, crucifixions, beheadings, slavery, the subjugation of women, and the inspiration of like-minded terrorists worldwide. The group’s physical caliphate has been essentially eliminated during the Trump administration, and President Trump has repeatedly urged other countries to take back their ISIS fighters.
