He is one of the infamous “Beatles” of jihad.
El Shafee el-Sheikh, a member of this sinister cell within the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, was found guilty in a US court on Thursday of playing a role in the kidnapping and death of four American hostages in Syria. .
The verdict was welcomed by the families of the victims.
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Accused of being a member of this bloodthirsty trio, so nicknamed by the hostages because of their British accent, he was tried in Alexandria, near Washington, for the capture and death of journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, as well as workers humanitarians Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig, and for supporting a terrorist organization.
Silent throughout the trial
The jury in this trial in federal court took only 12 hours to convict him of the eight counts against him.
The accused did not react to the announcement of the verdict, while members of the families of the victims, present at the hearing, had tears in their eyes.
33-year-old El Shafee el-Sheikh chose to remain silent throughout this first major trial against the extremist group in the United States, which lasted two weeks.
Through the voice of his lawyer, he admitted having joined the ranks of the IS while denying being one of the “Beatles”.
"It's a day when we didn't need bombs or bullets to get justice, said after the verdict Diane Foley, who had fought to free her son who was finally executed in 2014. I really think that justice prevailed”.
Sentencing August 12
Carl Mueller, the father of the young humanitarian kidnapped in 2013 and declared dead in 2015 by IS, also welcomed the outcome of the trial.
“We have all seen the best of the American justice system,” he said alongside his wife, Marsha, who gave poignant testimony last week.
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His sentence is due on August 12.
He faces life imprisonment, a sentence "probably worse than the death penalty," said Carl Mueller.
"A terrorist crime opens a gaping wound in a society, only justice can put an end to such a monstrous chapter", commented the French journalist Nicolas Hénin, hostage between 2013 and 2014 and who had testified to the cruelty of his jailers.
“She does not bring back the dead, does not heal all wounds, but she soothes.
It designates who is guilty, who is victim and it brings back some order,” he said in a message to AFP.
Macabre scenes
This cell would have supervised the detention, between 2012 and 2015, of at least 27 hostages from around fifteen countries (United Kingdom, Japan, Spain, France, Denmark, New Zealand, Peru, etc.), and staged the execution of a dozen of them in unbearable propaganda videos.
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During the trial, a dozen former hostages gave frightening testimonies on the violence suffered during their captivity: simulated drowning, systematic beatings, psychological torture... They described men who formed a real "team" and distinguished themselves by " their sadism", always "masked" and "gloved", which forbade looking at them and distributed blows without counting.
Death penalty ruled out
On Wednesday, before the jury's deliberation, prosecutor Raj Parekh assured that the prosecution had gathered "a mosaic of evidence" showing that he was part of a "terrifying and inhuman plot", which "resulted in death". of American, British and Japanese captives.
For the prosecution, El Shafee el-Sheikh was "Ringo" while some hostages seemed to think he was "George".
He was never really identified as a member of the group by the ex-hostages called to the bar, who had always seen the members of this masked trio.
El Shafee el-Sheikh had been arrested with Alexanda Kotey, another of the “Beatles”, by Kurdish forces in Syria in 2018. In detention, he had admitted to journalists to having been “without compassion” with hostages placed under his supervision .
They had been transferred to the United States for trial but Alexanda Kotey chose to plead guilty and will be sentenced on April 29.
To try them, Washington had promised not to seek the death penalty.
The other member of the group, Mohammed Emwazi, was killed in a drone attack in 2015. Nicknamed "Jihadi John", he was identified after appearing with a butcher's knife in IS propaganda videos featuring scene of the beheading of Western hostages.