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'Barbaric' Islamic terrorist El Shafee Elsheikh sentenced to life for abuse and deaths of four Americans
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'Barbaric' Islamic terrorist El Shafee Elsheikh sentenced to life for abuse and deaths of four Americans

El Shafee Elsheikh is the Sudanese-born former British national who joined ISIS and committed atrocities in Iraq and Syria. He was convicted in April of hostage-taking resulting in death and other crimes. At a U.S. District Court hearing in Alexandria, Virginia, on August 19, Elsheikh was sentenced to life in prison.

Elsheikh, the most senior ISIS terrorist to stand trial in the U.S., had a hand in the imprisonment, abuse and deaths of American hostages James Foley, Steven Sotloff, Peter Kassig, and Kayla Mueller.

Whereas Foley, Sotloff, and Kassig were executed on camera, the footage of which was widely circulated online, Mueller was enslaved, raped by ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and then killed.

On October 27, 2019, al-Baghdadi "died like a dog ... like a coward" in a "dangerous and daring" nighttime raid ordered by former President Donald Trump, wherein numerous other ISIS militants were reportedly killed.

Another one of Elsheikh's accomplices who had joined him in leaving England to join ISIS, Mohammed Emwazi (nicknamed "Jihadi John"), was killed in a 2016 drone strike.

Elsheikh, captured in 2018 by Kurdish-led Syrian defense forces, was spared capital punishment along with his friend Alexanda Kotey because in August 2020, former U.S. Attorney General William Barr waived the death penalty to ensure cooperation from British prosecutors.

Raj Parekh, the lead prosecutor and first assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, requested that Elsheikh's punishment should reflect the Islamic terror group's engagement in "the systematic torture and abuse of their victims, ultimately resulting in the horrific deaths of at least eight American, British and Japanese citizens, among others, including gruesome executions that were videotaped and broadcast globally."

The Americans who Elsheikh was convicted of taking hostage were among 26 others taken captive by ISIS between 2012 and 2015. At the terrorist's base in Raqqa, Syria, the hostages were tortured in various ways, including waterboarding, mock executions, food deprivation, electric shocks, and prolonged beatings.

The New York Times reported the hostages were forced to fight one another, witness killings of fellow hostages, and were placed in painful stress positions.

Survivor Federico Motka, an Italian aid worker, recalled an instance in 2013 where he and other hostages David Haines, James Foley, and John Cantlie were forced by their ISIS captors to fight one another. Whoever would lose this so called "Royal Rumble" would be waterboarded.

Although Elsheikh did not deny fighting for ISIS, his attorneys suggested that he was not actually involved in the kidnappings. They claimed that he had been confused for one of the so called "Beatles," likely because the terrorists wore balaclavas and concealed their faces on camera.

Elsheikh's lawyer, Zachary Deubler, said his client will appeal his conviction. He also requested that Elsheikh not be sent to the supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, where he would be indefinitely placed in solitary confinement.

Judge T.S. Ellis III, appointed by former President Ronald Reagan, made no such recommendation to the Bureau of Prisons. Concerning the terrorist's conduct and behavior, Ellis said it could only be described as "horrific, barbaric, brutal, callous, and, of course, criminal."

Elsheikh's British citizenship was revoked in 2018. He had travelled to the U.K. as a refugee from Sudan, and settled in west London.

An estimated 900 British citizens left the U.K., where 23,000 known potential Islamic terrorists were living as of 2017.

Islamic state 'Beatles' cell member convicted in US, guilty for abuse & death of 4 Americansyoutu.be

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