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SYRIA-BRITAIN-US-IS-CAPTURE-JUSTICE
Syria rebels confirm UK jihadist capture as hostage kin seek justice
AMUDA, Syria, Feb 10, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – US-backed Syrian forces confirmed
Friday that they caught a British fighter from a savage Islamic State gang
nicknamed “The Beatles” last month, as relatives of hostages it killed called
for captured Western jihadists to face justice.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said it had caught Alexanda Amon Kotey
in eastern Syria in January as he tried to flee to neighbouring Turkey.
Meanwhile a US defence official announced on Thursday that fellow Briton
El Shafee el-Sheikh, another “Beatles” member, had also been captured by
Syrian rebel forces.
Kotey and Sheikh were part of a four-member IS kidnapping cell dubbed “The
Beatles” by their captives due to their heavy British accents. They were
notorious for videotaping beheadings.
“We captured some big commanders. One of them is Alexanda Kotey,” Redur
Khalil, a spokesperson and senior official in the SDF, told AFP in the
northeastern town of Amuda.
“He was captured by an anti-terrorism unit on January 24 in the
countryside near Raqa. He was trying to escape to Turkey in coordination with
his friends and contacts on the Turkish side,” he said.
The cell was believed to be behind the killing of American journalist
James Foley and numerous Western aid workers.
Diane Foley, his mother, said she wanted the two men to face trial in the
US and life imprisonment.
“Their crimes are beyond imagination,” she told BBC radio.
“It doesn’t bring James back, but hopefully it protects others from this
kind of crime.”
– ‘Vile and despicable crimes’ –
The pair’s arrest follows a four-month SDF-spearheaded operation that
culminated in mid-October with the retaking of Raqa, which had been the inner
sanctum of the “caliphate” declared by IS in 2014.
That victory was the doom of the jihadist proto-state, the last pockets of
which were then retaken within weeks by the SDF and other forces in Iraq and
Syria.
The duo “participated in the detention, exploitation and execution of
Western detainees,” the American security official said in a statement.
Aine Davis, a third so-called Beatles IS member, is being held in Turkey,
while the fourth, Mohammed Emwazi — dubbed “Jihadi John” — was killed in a
2015 coalition drone strike.
Redur Khalil could not confirm Sheikh’s capture however, saying he had no
information about the British jihadist.
He said that Kotey was being questioned but did not specify who by.
Last year, the US State Department said London-born Kotey had “likely”
taken part in executions and used “exceptionally cruel torture methods,
including electric shock and waterboarding”.
Britain’s Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson told The Times newspaper on
Friday: “These are people who have done absolutely vile and despicable crimes
and brought absolutely so much misery.
“It is good that they have been hunted down and caught.”
– Closure –
Bethany Haines, whose British aid worker father David was killed in 2014
after being held captive for 18 months, said she hoped the pair’s detention
could bring closure.
“The first thought was relief, finally to know that the people that were
involved in my dad’s murder have been caught and will sort of serve some
justice,” she told Britain’s ITV television.
She said she wanted them to be “locked up with the key thrown away”.
Tobias Ellwood, a British defence minister, said Friday the pair should
face an international war crimes tribunal and not be sent to Guantanamo Bay
as some have speculated will occur.
He said terror suspects once captured “must answer and be judged to a
legitimate authority”.
“Given the scale of foreign fighters we should consider an agreed
international process involving The Hague,” he told The Daily Telegraph
newspaper.
But the broadsheet reported London would not hinder any moves to extradite
the pair to the US and there was little desire among ministers to repatriate
them to Britain.
It quoted Williamson as saying: “I don’t think they should ever set foot
in this country again.”
The Ministry of Defence declined to comment, amid reports their UK
citizenship had been stripped under anti-terror laws.
French journalist Nicolas Henin, who was kidnapped and held by Islamic
State for 10 months, demanded the men be brought to justice in the UK.
“This is the beginning of a process that will bring them eventually,
hopefully, to a trial,” he told Sky News.
“Guantanamo is a denial of justice. What I want is a trial and a trial
potentially that I can attend, so rather, a trial in London rather than one
in Kobani in northern Syria.”
BSS/AFP/MRI/0819 hrs