International [ISIS Repatriation] Yazidis plead with Canada not to repatriate ISIS members

[ShinkanPo]

Death penalty!

 

[ShinkanPo]

I hate to be that guy but how do we know every single on in detention is/was an ISIS fighter if they haven't even been put on trial? Couldn't it be possible that a fighting age male was at the wrong place at the wrong time?

This is a good point and the others can say they went Syria or EyeRack to rescue their fanilies from Isis.

 

[Arkain2K]

What the fuck is this shit...

Britain 'wants assurances from America that it won't seek the death penalty for captured Beatles ISIS jihadists
By Thomas Burrows | 1 March 2018

The United States is expected to take custody of the two Londoners who were part of the ISIS beheading gang dubbed 'The Beatles' - but Britain wants assurances it will not seek the death penalty.

Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, who were part of the execution cell that included Jihadi John, were detained by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in January.

They were named after the 60s band because of their English accents.

Recently, UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said the two men, who have been stripped of British citizenship, should not be allowed to return because they had 'turned their back on British ideas, British values', so the US is expected to eventually take custody of them.

However the Trump administration is holding off on doing so until it figures out how it will handle them, according to several American officials.

The British government also wants the US to provide assurances American prosecutors will not seek the death penalty against Kotey and Elsheikh.

It is threatening to hold back important evidence about them as leverage, officials told the New York Times.

The British want the US to prosecute the two men in a civilian court instead of taking them to the Guantánamo Bay wartime prison, the officials said.

The ringleader of the 'Beatles', Mohammed Emwazi - known as Jihadi John - was killed in an airstrike in 2015 in Syria.

A fourth man, Aine Davis, was convicted of being a member of a terrorist organisation and jailed for seven-and-a-half years at a court in Silivri, Turkey, in May 2017.

The four west Londoners were linked to a string of hostage murders in Iraq and Syria during the bloody Islamist uprising. They also had a reputation for waterboarding, mock executions and crucifixions.

The US government said the group beheaded more than 27 hostages, including British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, on camera.

Unnamed US Officials said Kotey and Elsheikh were captured by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces which were fighting the last remaining pockets of ISIS fighters near the river Euphrates on the Iraq/Syria border.

It added that the men were identified by fingerprints and other biometric means.

According to the State Department, Kotey 'likely engaged in the group's executions and exceptionally cruel torture methods, including electronic shock and waterboarding.'

Kotey also acted as an ISIS recruiter and was responsible for recruiting several Brits to join the murderous organisation.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5449379/US-expected-custody-two-ISIS-Beatles.html

 

[Cid]

“Nuke the Whales”

-gotta nuke something

 

[Arkain2K]

ISIS fighters known as 'the Beatles' demand trial in the U.K
By Nick Paton Walsh, Salma Abdelaziz, Christian Streib and Mohammed Hassan | April 9, 2018

​

Northern Syria (CNN) Two of the most wanted fighters from the British ISIS cell called "the Beatles" have called some of the group's actions "regrettable," and insisted that their legal rights are respected wherever they're brought to trial.

Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh made the comments during a wide-ranging interview with CNN, which they consented to, from inside a detention facility in northern Syria where they are being held by US-backed Syrian Kurds.

The pair gained notoriety for being part of a British-accented group of ISIS fighters, fronted by Mohammed Emwazi, also known as Jihadi John, who for a time regularly appeared in macabre videos from Syria showing him beheading several Western hostages.

The executions, widely disseminated online, caused outrage and horror in the West, transforming public perceptions of the terror threat posed by ISIS.

The pair are among dozens of foreign-born ISIS fighters held in the region now seemingly caught amid a diplomatic wrangle, with their countries of origin either equivocating or point blank refusing to sanction their return to stand trial, leaving the Syrian Kurds with an uncomfortable burden.

Inside the facility, the pair seemed relaxed and comfortable as they sipped Pepsi and debated for 90 minutes whether they wanted to speak, before talking on camera for 54 minutes, often directly addressing the legal limbo they now find themselves in.

According to British media, the pair have been stripped of their UK citizenship, further exacerbating the issue of where -- if anywhere, given the legal hurdles -- to bring them to trial.

The US State Department accuses Kotey, 34, originally from Ladbroke Grove in London, of having "likely engaged in the group's executions and exceptionally cruel torture" of their Western journalist and aid worker hostages.

Elsheikh "was said to have earned a reputation for water-boarding, mock executions, and crucifixions," according to the State Department.

The pair joked about the United Kingdom or US potentially choosing to try them under Sharia law, or "hang, draw and quarter" them, while constantly referring to the rights afforded them under US and UK legal systems.

"l am not a democratic person, but I am being subjected to democratic law. So it is only right for those who claim to uphold this to fully uphold it," Elsheikh said.

Confronted by CNN with the fact several of their former hostages and alleged victims had said they recognized their faces and voices from previous interviews, Elsheikh declined to comment on what he said would be a legal matter. "It's just an accusation, legally speaking. You know, if Britain said 'we are going to deal with you by barbaric law, or with law from the medieval ages,' then hang, draw and quarter me. But that's not the case. I'm just merely pointing that out." Kotey offered a similarly veiled denial, and refused to be drawn on specific allegations.

Displaying a mix of contempt and joviality, Kotey added: "The American administration or British government -- if they decided they wanted to be champions of the sharia and apply Islamic law upon myself and Shaf [Elsheikh], then by all means. If not, then they should adhere to that which they claim to be champions of."

Asked where he would prefer to be tried, Kotey said: "Definitely, familiarity is the easier option. My experience is that British judges are quite fair and just." He added: "I miss fish and chips and pickled egg."

Elsheikh appeared angry at the potential loss of his UK citizenship -- specifically at how little information or consent he had in the process -- which the British government has yet to officially announce or comment on. "It does not necessarily upset me, but I think it would would be a very black day for international law."

A spokesperson for the UK Home Office refused to comment on the citizenship of the pair when approached by CNN Monday.

Speculation has grown as to what eventual solution will bring the ISIS prisoners to trial and where those convicted can be incarcerated, with the US emerging as one possible option.

Elsheikh twice expressed his approval of the US Department of Defense interrogators who he said have been talking to him, calling them "fair actors."

He added: "If you were to be taken back to the USA, you would be dealing with the likes of the FBI and people of that sort who are definitely not ... I don't have the same to say about them."

Elsheikh on several occasions referred to the traumatic scenes he said he had witnessed in Syria since arriving in Aleppo in 2012.

Both men suggested the violence of the regime against Syrian civilians was a motive for their eventual role in ISIS. Yet Kotey often appeared unaffected by the seriousness of the accusations made against him.

Asked what keeps him awake at night he paused, smiled and said: "There are these lice in my clothes in the place I'm sleeping. No, I want to talk about while I was in the Islamic State the kinds of things that keep you up at night is the sound of the F-16 jets flying the sky. And some Syrian neighbor with his kids crying."

Elsheikh also spoke of the death of children by what he said was Coalition bombardment.

Mock executions, murder

Between 2014 and 2015 the group, fronted by the masked black-clad Mohammed Emwazi or Jihadi John, participated in a string of brutal ISIS propaganda videos, in which they demanded millions in dollars in ransom to spare the lives of foreign hostages, many of them journalists and aid workers. Few of the ransoms were met, and instead the hostages were beheaded.

Reflecting in their involvement in the murders, the pair, at times, appeared uneasy with some of ISIS' methods.

Elsheikh said he "came to Syria and I had standards and principles. I didn't come here because of a love of death, or witnessing death, or seeing destruction."

He said some principles were compatible with being in ISIS, others not. "Every person who is a member of any community will have some discrepancies with opinions, actions."

Kotey said he regretted some of the extreme elements of ISIS' execution videos, and their effect on the victims' families. "Definitely it would be damaging and it's regrettable that families had to see that," he said.

However, Elsheikh defiantly referred to the man believed to behind many of the most notorious beheadings, Emwazi, as his "friend."

Asked to describe Emwazi, who was killed in a drone strike in November 2015, he said: "Obviously I know that people in the Western world aren't going to want to hear this, but truth has to be said. He was one of the most loyal friends I've had, trustworthy, honest, upstanding."

He admitted being surprised when he saw video of Emwazi beheading hostages, and declined to answer whether he approved of the act.

After the interview was finished, guards put handcuffs and masks on the prisoners. As the pair was led away, Elsheikh turned his head and said: "Make me look good."

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/09/middleeast/isis-beatles-interview-intl/index.html

 

[DoomPatrol]

That's not a bad option at all.

 

[Brodels]

Let me just throw this out there.

I feel sorry for their family/loved ones probably never seeing these people again while strangers cheer for the death of said loved one.

THAT said, they fucking should have known better what they were getting themselves into when they (the person in question) left.

If their family would welcome back an ISIS fighter they should be hanged as well

 

[bobgeese]

Have them stand in line front to back, we might save some bullets that way. 2 for the price on one and whatnot.

 

[irish_thug]

Britain 'wants assurances from America that it won't seek the death penalty​

​

I want assurances that they will seek the death penalty.

 

[Seano]

I say give them the same "trial" ISIS would give a captured american.

 

[BillytheFish]

If you commit a crime in a country its best that your dealt with in that country be that wannabe jihadis guilty of atrocities in Syria , or gap year trustifarians caught with drugs up their arses in Thailand .

Cool so when British and Americans are arrested in these shitholes we get held at their justice system. Yeah thanks for that.

 

[Arkain2K]

I want assurances that they will seek the death penalty.

What, you don't trust the British justice system to give British jihadists what they deserves?

Words on the street is that Canada may be willing to take them in if they have dual British-Canadian citizenships, so there's that!

A British-Canadian Jihadist is a Canadian Jihadist is a Canadian...

 

[Hidden_Hand]

Britain wants assurance they get treat fairly? God I hate this country.

Line them all up, gun them all down with a mini gun, bodies in a big hole, lots of gasoline and burn them.

Easy

 

[Stoic1]

72 virgins.

Lathered up in pork grease and set on fire. Make a video of it. Distribute it to wanna-be jihadists. Nothing personal I just don't want them to become recruiting tools.

 

[Literally Bricked]

Flay them and put them out to sea. If you make it across the Mediterranean you get burned alive.

 

[Arkain2K]

Alleged ISIS operative 'Jihadi Jack' begs Canada to let him come here
'Please get me out of this place,' Jack Letts asks consular officials
Murray Brewster · CBC News · Posted: Feb 08, 2018

Jack Letts went to Syria and Iraq in 2014. He is now in a jail in northern Syria​

Canadian diplomats have made contact with a British-Canadian man who allegedly joined ISIS in Syria — and who is now pleading with the government to secure his release from prison and allow him to come to Canada, CBC News has learned.

Jack Letts, a British-Canadian man dubbed "Jihadi Jack" by the U.K. media, is being held by Kurdish authorities on suspicion of being a member of the extremist organization.

CBC News has obtained audio recordings and text transcripts of his conversations with Canadian consular officials, who have stopped short of giving him any direct assurances they'll be able to free him.

"Please get me out of this place," Letts said in a Jan. 10 conversation with Canadian officials. "I don't mind if you put me in prison, just get me out of here as soon as possible."

Asked if he wanted to return to his parents' home in Oxford, U.K., Letts was unequivocal: "I want to come to Canada."

'I started to go insane'

He told the consular official that he had attempted suicide after his first month in solitary confinement but was found in time by his Kurdish guards.

"I started to go insane and talk to myself and I thought dying was better than my mother seeing me insane," Letts said. "So I tried to hang myself."

He has since been allowed to live in a cell with other prisoners.

CBC has asked officials at Global Affairs repeatedly whether the Liberal government is working to win his freedom and whether he would be allowed to come to Canada.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, on her way to testify before a Commons committee Thursday afternoon, would not comment on the case. A spokesperson for her department would only say the minister is aware of Letts' case.

The government's reluctance to comment comes as a surprise to his family.

"What we've been thinking for eight months that they have been doing everything they could to help get him out and help get him to Canada," John Letts told CBC News from his home in Oxford, England. "That's certainly what we have been told by Global Affairs Canada. And we've had regular dealings with them."

The lawyer representing his family in Ottawa, Paul Champ, said there's been no ambiguity in his conversations with officials and the only hurdle appears to be the logistical challenges involved in getting him out of Syria.

Part of the problem is that Letts is being held not by a country but by the Kurdish YPG militia, which has been targeted by Turkey in military operations and by various rival factions in Syria.

"The Kurds don't simply want to release him and have him walk out door, and so the question is who they are going to hand him over to," said Champ.

"The Canadian army is not active in Syria and there are a number of different armed groups that are in that region. Canada does not have any diplomatic presence in Syria, so the question is really a logistical one about how we are going to get him out of the country."

Letts is being held in a prison in Qamishli in northern Syria, along the Turkish border.

Champ said he believes that, from a legal perspective, Letts can be considered a "hostage" and not necessarily a prisoner. He said Canada has an obligation to him as a citizen to render assistance.

Speaking by phone earlier this month, a Canadian consular official assured Letts that Canada is "working to resolve" his plight, according to text transcripts obtained by CBC News.

That verbal assurance was followed by a letter sent to his parents just days ago. In it, the federal government's director of consular case management said the government is "making every effort to assist" him.

"We have been in communication with Kurdish representatives to that end and continue our efforts," Kirill Kagner wrote on Jan. 29.

Sally Lane, Jack's mother, said she wants her son to go to Canada — specifically southern Ontario, where both she and her husband have family.

"It's a much fairer place," said John Letts. "The whole attitude towards this issue [of dealing with extremism] has been much more enlightened, much more tolerant."

'A Canadian is a Canadian'

The Letts case is a major test of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's oft-quoted diplomatic mantra that "a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian" — his response during the 2015 election campaign to the former Conservative government's legislation stripping suspected terrorists of their Canadian citizenship.

One of the Trudeau Liberals' first acts once in power was to ditch that law.

More recently, the government has been attacked by its opponents for its support for de-radicalization programs involving returning ISIS supporters.

The British government, meanwhile, hasn't indicated any interest in allowing Letts to return to the U.K. According to lawyers representing his family, British authorities have done little to get him out of Kurdish custody. The British High Commission in Ottawa declined comment on the case Thursday.

British Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson suggested at one point last fall that Britons who fought for ISIS should be hunted down and killed — a comment that drew widespread condemnation from legal experts and Labour MPs, who said such a policy would amount to an embrace of extrajudicial killings.

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, in an appearance on CBC News Network's Power & Politics back in November, made it clear where the Liberal government stood: "Canada does not engage in death squads."

Letts, 22, was captured by the Kurdish YPG militia last May after escaping the extremist group's de facto capital, Raqqa, before it fell.

His parents, John Letts and Sally Lane, claim their son never joined ISIS and was travelling in Syria when he was taken by terrorists in 2014 after he had dropped out of school to visit the war-torn country.

'Mental health issues'

They and human rights advocates in the U.K. have said Letts has "mental health issues" and also is suffering from an inherited inflammatory kidney disease that has gone untreated since his capture.

Before escaping Raqqa, he reportedly pleaded with his parents to bring him home. When they tried to send him money, British authorities charged them with funding a terrorist group.

In reports published last fall, the British Foreign Office said it has warned consistently over the last few years that people should not travel to Syria and that it has no "consular representation there."

A written statement from Kurdish authorities, released in mid-January, said Letts is being investigated by "anti-terror" units, but once the case is settled he can be released into the custody of either Canada or Britain.

"Therefore, we ask the parents of Jack Letts and their legal representative to ask the U.K. and Canadian governments to officially request the handover of Jack Letts from the officials of the [Democratic Federation of Northern Syria] so that the handover can proceed officially," said the statement. "However, so far there has been no official request from neither Canadian or British governments."

'I don't see how Canada would refuse'

An immigration lawyer said it's a complex case — and the Liberal government has little leeway to deny Letts' request.

"I don't see how Canada would refuse to at least give him a one-way travel document to Canada," said Peter Edelmann, who testified before a Commons committee about the former Conservative government's legislation stripping citizenship from suspected terrorists.

"That doesn't mean he won't come straight into custody in Canada. He may well have committed an offence that is prosecutable in Canada. I don't know what he is alleged to have done in Syria but there may be a basis for prosecuting him here."

Most of the federal anti-terrorist laws enacted over the last few years have been aimed at stopping Canadian citizens from travelling overseas to join groups like ISIS.

Edelmann said the fact Letts departed from Britain makes his case more difficult for Canadians to prosecute.

Letts is not one of a group of four British ISIS militants known outside Syria as "The Beatles" because of their U.K. accents, and infamous for their role in the torture and killing of Western hostages.

According to U.S. officials, Syrian Kurdish fighters recently detained two of those men — Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh. They were the last two members of the group to remain at large.

Their leader, Mohammed Emwazi, was killed in an airstrike in 2015 in Syria. Known as "Jihadi John," he beheaded American and British hostages. A fourth man, Aine Davis, is in custody in Turkey on terrorism charges.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/jihadi-jack-isis-consular-1.4526882

 

[Arkain2K]

Sajid Javid drops UK's blanket opposition to death penalty to allow two Isis fighters to be sent to US
Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh are said to have been members of the brutal four-man 'Beatles' cell of executioners in Syria and Iraq
Ashley Cowburn Politcal Correspondent | Monday 23 July 2018

​

Sajid Javid has dropped Britain’s blanket opposition to the death penalty in order to allow two notorious British Isis fighters to be sent to the United States.

In what constitutes a major departure from the well-established policy of opposing the death penalty abroad “in all circumstances as a matter of principle”, the home secretary told the US attorney general, Jeff Sessions, that he would not demand a “death penalty assurance” in this particular case.

Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, are said to have been members of the brutal four-man “Beatles” cell of executioners in Syria and Iraq, and are responsible for killing a series of high-profile Western captives.

The pair, who are understood to have been stripped of their British citizenship, were captured in January, sparking a row over whether they should be returned to the UK for trial or face justice in another jurisdiction.

But in a letter seen by The Daily Telegraph to Mr Sessions, the home secretary wrote last month: “I am of the view that there are strong reasons for not requiring a death penalty assurance in this specific case, so no such assurances will be sought.”

“I have instructed my officials to set out the terms of our assistance and to work with your officials to action the request.

But, he added: “As you are aware, it is the long-held position of the UK to seek death penalty assurances, and our decision in this case does not reflect a change in our policy on assistance in US death penalty cases generally, nor the UK government’s stance on the global abolition of the death penalty.”

A government strategy document from 2011 states that promoting human rights and democracy is a priority for the UK and “it is the longstanding policy of the UK to oppose the death penalty of the UK to oppose the death penalty in all circumstances as a matter of principle”.

Mr Javid also said US courts were better placed to handle “foreign fighter” cases because of the risk of legal challenge in the UK.

The Home Secretary said he understood US “frustration” on the subject and added that the UK was introducing “new legislation to improve the range of offences on the statute book” to deal with the “scourge” of foreign fighters.

“Ensuring foreign fighters face justice raises a real challenge for all our jurisdictions; however, in this instance, we believe that a successful federal prosecution in the US is more likely to be possible because of differences in your statute book and the restrictions on challenges to the route by which defendants appear in US courts,” he said.

“The US currently has additional charges for terrorism offences which are not available under UK criminal law, and those offences carry long sentences.”

Along with Mohammed Emwazi - the killer nicknamed Jihadi John - and Aine Davis, Kotey and Elsheikh are thought to have been part of a group named after the '60s band because of their English accents.

Emwazi, who was killed in a US air strike in 2015, appeared in a number of videos in which captives, including British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning and US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, were killed.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ition-james-foley-jeff-sessions-a8459556.html

 

[Arkain2K]

Fuck this shit.

I say we airdrop the captured British-born jihadists over London and let the British courts deal with them.

Isis Beatles: UK 'must not let standards slip' in face of terror, Ken Clarke warns
Lizzie Dearden Home Affairs Correspondent | Monday 23 July 2018

Mohammed Emwazi, known as Jihadi John, is among the British Isis fighters killed in drone strikes without parliamentary approval​

The UK “must not let its standards slip” in the face of terror, Tory grandee Ken Clarke has said amid uproar over the government’s decision not to stop two Isis fighters being given the death penalty in America.

The home secretary broke a decades-long policy of refusing to aid investigations that could result in capital punishment by sharing evidence against alleged “Beatles” Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh.

Currently imprisoned by the Syrian Democratic Forces, they are to be transferred to the US after months of diplomatic wrangling over which country would take responsibility for their prosecution.

In a letter to the US Attorney General, Sajid Javid insisted that the case does not affect the UK’s opposition to the death penalty, but did not seek the normal assurances that it would not be used.

The prime minister was “aware” of the decision but ministers did not seek parliamentary approval and it only became public when the document was leaked to the media.

In a heated debate in the House of Commons, the government was accused of “hypocrisy” as it outwardly continues global opposition to the death penalty.

Mr Clarke, the former home secretary and current chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary Rendition, said he could not remember any other cases where assurances against capital punishment had not been sought.

“We should have nothing to do with cases of this kind unless we have assurances that people aren’t subject to the death penalty,” he told The Independent.

“The reputation of this country depends on upholding the highest standards of human rights and individual liberty, and things like torture, rendition and the death penalty should not be part of our tough and effective intelligence services.”

Mr Clarke said that although some members of the public may support capital punishment for Isis fighters, “we can’t slip into that – we mustn’t allow fear to cause us to abandon standards of freedom, liberty and human rights on which this country stands”.

“We must make sure we don’t let our standards slip,” he added.

The government previously bypassed parliamentary approval to launch drone strikes targeting British Isis militants in Syria, announcing them when they had already been carried out and refusing to release the legal advice said to have legitimised the bombing.

The chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on drones found last week that ministers’ arguments were “weak and inconsistent”.

Professor Michael Clarke said the government knew that MPs would be unlikely to object to the move because they could not be seen to support Isis fighters.

“Because they were bad guys we said ‘it doesn’t matter’ ... but the principles being compromised are very important,” he told The Independent. “If you’re fighting terrorism you’ve got to be unambiguously lawful in what you do.”

The security minister, Ben Wallace, used Isis’ horrendous crimes to bat away questions from MPs over why the government had not followed normal policy for Kotey and Elsheikh.

“The crimes that we are talking about include the videoed beheading of dozens of innocent people by one of the most abhorrent organisations walking this earth,” he told the House of Commons, accusing critical MPs of wanting them to “roam free”.

But Dominic Grieve QC, the former attorney general who chairs the Intelligence and Security Committee, said it would have been “perfectly proper” to demand guarantees the two men would not be given the death penalty before sharing evidence with the US and warned: “This is going to continue to haunt the government.”

Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell pointed out that: “On human rights, we cannot distinguish between good and bad people.”

Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, cited calls from the mother of murdered hostage James Foley for a fair trial and another captive who survived told The Independent he did not want to see Kotey and Elsheikh be given the “satisfaction” of execution.

But Mr Wallace refused to reverse the decision and insisted that the US was the “most appropriate jurisdiction” for the pair to be put on trial.

“We are not going to seek of assurances because it is our reality that we do not think we have the evidence here to try them in the UK,” he added.

“At the end of the day this is about the security of our country and about security being delivered where it can be done.”

Mr Clarke said that values had wavered since the 9/11 attacks and rise of jihadi threats, when the UK allowed a “serious lapse in our normal standards” with involvement in extraordinary rendition to Libya and other countries where people faced torture.

“The government continues to make all the right protestations ... but that does not explain why we engaged in it so extensively,” he added, calling for a promised Detainee Inquiry to be reconstituted.

“Something needs to be done to find out exactly what went wrong and to make sure in future it never happens again.”

Mr Clarke said the Intelligence and Security Committee had been “effectively stopped” from investigating post-September 11 cases and that parliamentary scrutiny was being bypassed once again.

Mr Wallace insisted that the UK shared intelligence on the basis that Kotey and Elsheikh would not be sent to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp without trial.

Originally from London, both militants were declared “specially designated global terrorists” by the US State Department ahead of their capture in January, with official documents naming them as members of the “The Beatles” and saying the cell had beheaded more than 27 hostages and tortured many more.

Hostages have told of their brutality, which included torture, waterboarding, electric shocks, mock executions, and crucifixions.

Executioner Mohammed Emwazi, who became known as “Jihadi John”, was killed in a drone strike, while the remaining “Beatle” Aine Davis is imprisoned in Turkey.

Kotey and Elsheikh are among the Isis fighters stripped of British citizenship for the “public good” – a power being increasingly used by the government to stop them returning home after the terrorist group was driven out of territories across Syria and Iraq.

The government’s 2018 Transparency Report on Disruptive and Investigatory Powers, which was released on Monday, showed that 104 people were deprived of British citizenship in 2017 – up from just 14 the year before.

Security services have also withdrawn passports from terror suspects to stop them travelling abroad and excluded 26 people from Britain on national security grounds in the year.

A further nine terror suspects were put on “no fly” lists meaning they cannot return to the UK without notifying authorities under set conditions, and eight are currently subject to restrictions under Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures.

The Home Office said there were “a range of tools in our toolbox” to disrupt people who pose a security risk, even if they cannot be prosecuted or deported.

Of around 900 jihadis known to have travelled to Syria and Iraq, the government estimates that 40 per cent have returned and 20 per cent have been killed in the region.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ts-standards-us-slip-ken-clarke-a8460676.html

 

[Arkain2K]

Amber Rudd ‘perplexed’ by decision to give US option to potentially execute British-born jihadists
Mattha Busby | July 28, 2018

​

Amber Rudd, the former home secretary, is reportedly “perplexed” by her successor Sajid Javid’s decision to tacitly accept that two jihadists, allegedly part of the so-called “Beatles” Isis cell, could be executed in the US.

There had been no discussion about waiving death penalty assurances with regards to Alexanda Kotey and Shafee Elsheikh that Ms Rudd recalled during her time in office, according to The Daily Telegraph.

It was also reported that she does not recall seeing any legal advice on providing intelligence about the duo to US prosecutors while not seeking that they avoid the death penalty.

“The UK does not currently intend to request, nor actively encourage, the transfer of Kotey and Elsheikh to the UK to support a future UK based prosecution,” read a letter sent by Mr Javid to Jeff Sessions, the US attorney general.

“I am of the view that there are strong reasons for not requiring a death penalty assurance in this specific case, so no such assurances will be sought.”

Mr Javid’s failure to demand that the pair, who are currently being held in northern Syria, should face justice in the country of their birth provoked widespread uproar from cross-party MPs who argued that it contravenes Britain’s well established opposition to capital punishment – a practice ended in the UK in 1965.

The coalition government published a death penalty strategy in 2011 professing that the UK aims to increase the number of countries that have abolished the death penalty.

Following a legal challenge by Elsheikh’s mother on Wednesday, the Home Office has suspended cooperation with the US on the matter until the case is resolved.

However, the action might not prevent the transferral of the pair from custody in Syria to the US. “The Americans can do what the Americans want,” a government source told The Independent on Friday.

In any case, British authorities might have already shared key information from its four year counterterror investigation into Kotey and Elsheikh to their American counterparts.

Elsheikh and Kotey were raised in Britain and allegedly helped perpetrate a slew of killings of UK and US citizens, including the British aid workers Alan Henning and David Haines and the American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, in territory held by Isis during the Syrian civil war.

The UK and the US governments had been negotiating where the men should be prosecuted after Syrian Kurdish soldiers captured the pair, who have been stripped of their British citizenship, in February.

Mohammed Emwazi, another member of the so-called “Beatles”, is believed to have been killed in a US airstrike in 2015; while Aine Davis was jailed in Turkey for seven and a half years after being convicted of being a member of a terrorist organisation.

Under the Extradition Act 2003, the UK is prohibited from sending someone to a country where they could face the death penalty – unless the government has received an assurance that capital punishment will not be imposed.

Elsheikh and Kotey, however, were not apprehended in a British sovereign territory and therefore have not been subject to extradition proceedings.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...-elsheikh-syria-war-sajid-javid-a8467526.html

 

[Arkain2K]

UK facing legal action over 'unlawful' decision not to protect Isis 'Beatles' from death penalty
Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, who were stripped of their British citizenship, could face execution in the US
Lizzie Dearden, Home Affairs Correspondent | Tuesday 24 July 2018

Legal action could be launched against the government over its failure to demand that two members of a British Isis cell known as “the Beatles” will not be executed in the US.

MPs are in uproar over the fact they were not consulted about the reversal of a long-held policy barring extradition or intelligence sharing in cases where the death penalty may be used.

The Howard League for Penal Reform is now examining the possibility of legal action against the home secretary, Sajid Javid, over the fate of Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, who were stripped of their British citizenship before they were captured in Syria earlier this year.

The charity’s chief executive Frances Crook said: “We are committed to upholding the rule of law and the total abolition of capital punishment. We have been advised that legal action is feasible. We are consulting with senior legal figures on the precise details and we will make an announcement shortly.”

Ben Emmerson QC, a former United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism, said the decision was “unprincipled, incompetent and almost certainly unlawful”.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the British government’s historic position of opposing the death penalty in all circumstances “has translated to an absolute rule, which is legally enforceable, not to extradite an individual to a country where they are at serious risk of the death penalty without an assurance in advance that the penalty will not be carried out”.

Kotey and Elsheikh are currently being held by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a non-state coalition backed by the US.

This, along with the fact they are no longer British citizens, means the transfer will not technically be an extradition but a “mutual legal assistance” arrangement.

A leaked letter from the home secretary told the US attorney general that the government was not requesting the pair to be transferred to Britain for trial, or seeking assurances that the death penalty would not be used.

“We believe that a successful federal prosecution in the US is more likely to be possible because of differences in your statute book and the restrictions on challenges to the route by which defendants appear in US courts,” Mr Javid wrote.

He also promised to hand over material from a four year investigation by counterterror police to be used in a federal criminal investigation.

Mr Emmerson said the decision could “absolutely” be challenged in court and violated government guidance published by David Cameron in 2010, which “prohibits any cooperation of this kind”.

The lawyer said that although the deprivation of UK nationality means Kotey and Elsheikh cannot assert some of their previous rights, it is “immaterial to the legality of the British government passing information to a foreign power where they know the consequence is going to be a fundamental human rights abuse of this kind”.

Ben Wallace, the security minister, argued in the House of Commons last week that seeking an assurance against the death penalty might “get in the way” of a US trial.

He was jeered for suggesting the alternative was letting Kotey and Elsheikh “roam free”, and used Isis’ horrendous crimes to bat away questions from MPs over why the government had not followed normal policy.

“The crimes that we are talking about include the videoed beheading of dozens of innocent people by one of the most abhorrent organisations walking this earth,” Mr Wallace said.

“We are not going to seek assurances because it is our reality that we do not think we have the evidence here to try them in the UK.

“At the end of the day, this is about the security of our country and about security being delivered where it can be done.”

Downing Street threw its weight behind the Home Office by saying Theresa May supported its handling of the case.

“The ultimate aim for all of us in our discussions with the US is to make sure that these men face the rest of their lives in prison – that is also what the victims’ families want,” said a spokeswoman. “The prime minister was aware of these plans and supports the way that these are being handled.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...adition-home-office-sajid-javid-a8461226.html