WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Alexanda Kotey, a former member of the Islamic State group, jailer and executioner of several Western hostages, was sentenced in the United States on Friday to life in prison by a US magistrate.
Member of a group nicknamed “The Beatles”, for their British accent, which became infamous by broadcasting the beheading videos of four American nationals, journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff as well as aid workers Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig, Alexanda Kotey was captured in Iraq before being transferred.
With his accomplices, he was also the jailer of four French hostages – journalists Nicolas Hénin, Pierre Torres, Didier François and Edouard Elias – between June 2013 and April 2014 in Aleppo, at a time when the Islamic State group was extending its hold on the country. northern Syria.
Throughout the trial, the families of their victims described their conditions of captivity and addressed their deaths.
“I won’t hate you,” said Paula Kassig, mother of Peter Kassig. “It would bring me so much sadness, so much pain and bitterness. My heart is broken but open, not destroyed.”
Alexanda Kotey’s lawyer made an effort during the trial to highlight his client’s efforts to seek forgiveness, including meeting with the families of some of his victims.
Born in the United Kingdom, Alexanda Kotey was stripped of her British nationality.
The group’s alleged leader, Briton Mohammed Emwazi, who oversaw the hostage executions, was killed in a drone strike in 2015. The fourth ‘Beatles’, Aine Lesley Davis, was arrested in Turkey where he was sentenced for terrorism.
(Jan Wolfe; French version Nicolas Delame)
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