One of four members of an ISIS group known as the “Beatles,” long believed responsible for taking high-profile American hostages to be slaughtered, pleaded guilty Thursday to a raft of crimes.
Alexanda Amon Kotey, dubbed “Jihadi Ringo” by the press, admitted taking part in the “brutal hostage-taking scheme” against four Americans — James Foley, Kayla Mueller, Steven Sotloff, and Peter Kassig. All four were killed in Syria while held by ISIS.
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Kotey, now a former British citizen, pleaded guilty to all charges in an eight-count indictment, including hostage-taking resulting in four American deaths and conspiracy charges related to the deaths of U.S., British, and Japanese nationals.
Kotey faces a mandatory life behind bars when he is sentenced on March 4, 2022, according to the plea agreement.
Kotey served as an ISIS fighter from November 2012 until February 2015 and “participated in the seizure, detention and hostage negotiations for four American citizens … each of whom died as hostages in ISIS custody,” federal prosecutors said. The DOJ said Kotey also participated in hostage operations involving British, Italian, Danish, and German nationals.
The four were grimly named after the legendary rock group’s John, Paul, George, and Ringo because of their British accents heard in monstrous hostage videos.
Kotey’s alleged co-conspirator El Shafee Elsheikh, “Jihadi George,” has a pending case at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The two men were captured together in January 2018 by the Syrian Democratic Forces. Mohammed Emwazi, known as “Jihadi John,” was killed in an airstrike, while Aine Lesley Davis, “Jihadi Paul,” is believed to be imprisoned in Turkey.
The Justice Department announced charges in October against the two British-born Islamic State members, agreeing to drop the possibility of the death penalty when convincing the United Kingdom to allow the men to be prosecuted in the United States.
“These charges are the product of many years of hard work in pursuit of justice for our citizens slain by ISIS,” then-Attorney General William Barr said of the duo. “Although we cannot bring them back, we can and will seek justice for them, their families, and for all Americans.”
Prosecutors said Thursday that Kotey and two other ISIS fighters supervised the ISIS prisons where the hostages were shuttled back and forth. Kotey and others “engaged in a prolonged pattern of physical and psychological violence against hostages” and tried to get their families and the U.S. government to pay large ransoms.
Kotey 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.
“This accountability is essential for anyone who kidnaps or unjustly detains Americans abroad if our country wishes to ever deter hostage-taking,” said Diane Foley, mother of James Foley. “I call on President Biden, our U.S. Congress, and all Americans to demand that our country protect and assist any innocent U.S. national held hostage or wrongfully detained abroad.”
Between August and October 2014, ISIS released videos depicting the beheadings of Foley, Sotloff, Haines, and Henning. In November 2014, the terrorist group released a video showing the severed head of Kassig. ISIS released videos depicting the decapitated body of Japanese citizen Haruna Yukawa and the beheading of Japanese citizen Kenji Goto in early 2015, and ISIS fighters sent Mueller’s family an email confirming her death in February 2015.
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The parents of Mueller, Foley, Kassig, and Sotloff penned a joint op-ed in July 2020 urging the Trump administration to bring ISIS fighters held by the U.S. military overseas to the U.S. to stand trial. The families noted ISIS members such as Emwazi and ISIS founder Abu Bakr al Baghdadi have already been killed. However, they stressed that others, such as Elsheikh and Kotey, should face justice on American soil.
“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,” they wrote.
