Bloomberg News
@Bloomberg-News·2.8M subscribers·40.1K videos
U.S. Charges British ISIS Members With Terrorism for Hostage Deaths
Posted
October 7, 2020
Views
1,040
Likes
30
Comments
16
Engagement
October 7, 2020
1,040
30
16
4.42%
Every word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.
Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.
Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line
See what was published immediately before and after this episode.
8:11Now PlayingThe Justice Department unsealed charges Wednesday against two Islamic State militants from Britain, accusing them of carrying out a gruesome campaign of torture, beheadings and other acts of violence against Western hostages they had captured in Syria, including four Americans.
El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey are two of four men dubbed “the Beatles” by the hostages they held captive because of their British accents.
They are expected to make their first appearance in the afternoon in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, where a federal grand jury issued an eight-count indictment.
The charges are a milestone in a years-long effort by U.S. authorities to bring to justice members of the group known for beheadings and barbaric treatment of aid workers, journalists and other hostages in Syria.
The men's arrival in the U.S. sets the stage for arguably the most sensational terrorism trial since the 2014 criminal case against the suspected ringleader of a deadly attack on the diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.
Videos of the killings, released online in the form of Islamic State propaganda, stunned the U.S. government for their unflinching violence.
The recordings routinely showed prisoners in orange jumpsuits on their knees beside a captor dressed in black whose native English drove home the global reach of a group that at its peak occupied vast swaths of Syria and Iraq.
Relatives of four of the slain hostages praised the Justice Department for transferring the men to the U.S. for trial, saying, “Now our families can pursue accountability for these crimes against our children in a U.S. court.”
The other two Beatles included the most infamous member of the group, Mohammed Emwazi, known as “Jihadi John,” who was killed in a 2015 drone strike. Emwazi appeared and spoke in the video of Foley’s execution. The fourth member, Aine Lesley Davis, was sentenced to seven years in prison in Turkey in 2017.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
QUICKTAKE ON SOCIAL:
Follow QuickTake on Twitter: twitter.com/quicktake
Like QuickTake on Facebook: facebook.com/quicktake
Follow QuickTake on Instagram: instagram.com/quicktake
Subscribe to our newsletter
Email us at quicktakenews@gmail.com
QuickTake by Bloomberg is a global news network delivering up-to-the-minute analysis on the biggest news, trends and ideas for a new generation of leaders.
Sentinel Indexing in Progress
Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.
All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.
