“British national El Shafee Elsheikh was sentenced to life in prison Friday for his role in an Islamic State scheme that took roughly two dozen Westerners hostage a decade ago. …
He is the most notorious and highest-ranking member of the Islamic State group to ever be convicted in a U.S. court, prosecutors said Friday [8/19/2022] at his sentencing hearing in U.S. District Court in Alexandria. …
The convictions revolved around the deaths of four American hostages: James Foley, Steven Sotloff, Peter Kassig, and Kayla Mueller. … They were among 26 hostages taken captive between 2012 and 2015, when the Islamic State group controlled large swaths of Iraq and Syria. …
His lawyer, Zachary Deubler, said Elsheikh will appeal his conviction. Elsheikh’s lawyers had argued that his confessions should have been ruled inadmissible because of alleged mistreatment after he was captured by Kurdish-led Syrian Defense Forces in 2018. …
‘The behavior of this defendant … can only be described as horrific, barbaric, brutal, callous and, of course, criminal,’ [Judge T.S.] Ellis said.”
– Associated Press, “An Islamic State Member Is Sentenced to Life in Prison in the Deaths of Hostages,” npr.org, August 19, 2022
Editor’s note: According to most historians of the Islamic State, “the group emerged out of al-Qaeda in Iraq as a response to the U.S. invasion in 2003.” See Hassan Hassan, “The True Origins of ISIS,” theatlantic.com, November 30, 2018, for more information.