The British government wants the United States to promise it won’t seek the death penalty for two ISIS terrorists, or send them to Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, if they are extradited from Syria to the U.S. and tried in court here.
Britain ‘wants assurances from America that it won’t seek the death penalty for captured Beatles ISIS jihadis’ https://t.co/qbEjVO1AZb
— Daily Mail U.K. (@DailyMailUK) March 1, 2018
U.K. officials want the two men, nicknamed “The Beatles” due to their hairstyles, to be tried in civilian court, where prosecutors would seek life in prison, anonymous European government sources told Reuters on Thursday. The New York Times first reported the news earlier this week.
The men, Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, are the two British extremists in question; British officials don’t want the men “repatriated” in the U.K., and the men had their British citizenship taken away, Reuters reported.
Kotey and Elsheikh are being held by the Kurdish militia unit in Syria that captured them.
Along with “Jihadi John,” or Mohammed Emwazi, and other U.K. terrorists, “The Beatles” had executed Americans that had been taken hostage by their group.
“Foreign fighters should be brought to justice regardless of their nationality. The appropriate process will be dependent on the individual circumstances,” one of the sources told Reuters, pointing out that there was “evidence they have committed a crime.”
The U.K. will “always press the U.S. not to apply the death penalty on security cases where we collaborate,” another source told Reuters, as Britain opposes the death penalty.
