The daughter of a British man killed by an ISIS terrorist who was part of the cell known as The Beatles told him to ‘go to hell’ after he was sentenced to life in federal prison Friday.
Bethany Haines walked up to Alexanda Kotey in the Alexandria, Virginia, court and pointed her finger as she said: ‘Why don’t you go rot in hell.’
Kotey did not react and walked out of the room where he and El Shafee Elsheikh, another member of The Beatles, had been forced to listen to agonizing victim impact statements.
A dozen people whose family members died through their conduct told them they were ‘cowards’ and ‘monsters’ during raw, emotional comments.
Kotey, 37, who was born in the UK, admitted eight charges related to kidnapping, torturing and executing the hostages in Syria between 2012 and 2015.
Elsheikh, 33, was convicted after a trial last month and will be sentenced in August.
He sat in court for the victim impact statements so the families did not have to return to court a second time.
In sentencing, Judge T.S. Ellis called his Kotey’s crimes ‘egregious, violent and inhuman.’
Alexanda Amon Kotey, 38, originally from Paddington, London, was one of four so-called Islamic State militants nicknamed The Beatles by their captives due to their British accents. He was convicted of kidnapping and killing American journalist James Foley, along with three other Americans in Syria
He said the victims – all aid workers and journalists – were ‘undeniably heroes,’ telling the court they were ‘were not prisoners of war, they were not soldiers’.
He said: ‘They were soldiers but soldiers for good, soldiers for selfless giving and reporting the facts’.
Judge Ellis said that Kotey seemed to show ‘some remorse – I don’t know how much’.
The judge said that his mother once told him she did not believe in the afterlife and told Kotey that ‘if there is, maybe you can make recompense there’.
The Beatles horrified the world with their propaganda videos where the victims were paraded in orange jumpsuits before being beheaded.
Among those who were killed were two Britons and four Americans.
In court each family member spoke from a microphone on the other side of the court from Kotey and Elsheikh.
Bethany Haines, 24, was 17 when her father David, 44, a former RAF worker from Perth in Scotland was executed in 2014 having been captured while doing aid work.
David Haines (at left) and Steven Sotloff were both captured and beheaded in 2014 after being held by a four-man terrorist group of Britons dubbed ‘The Beatles’ because of their British accents. Members of the cell buried the body of Foley, but burned that of Sotloff because the ground was too dry
Victims: Slain American journalist James Foley covering the civil war in Aleppo, Syria in 2012 and US aid worker Peter Kassig – otherwise known as Abdul-Rahman Kassig – in Syria
She said: ‘Celebrating birthdays or Christmas is not an enjoyable experience for me anymore. My dad should be celebrating with me, but instead he is in a mass grave in the hills of Raqqa. He hasn’t been laid to rest, he was dumped like a bag of rubbish’.
Ms Haines said that she could not forgive Kotey and Elsheikh because they had not ‘expressed one ounce of remorse for their actions’.
She said: ‘These two men are selfish and only care about themselves and until they accept their actions, admit to what they’ve done, and apologize, then there is no chance they will be forgiven by me. I have no pity for them’.
Haines said she had ‘struggled wondering why monsters, like these two men, are on this earth but my father isn’t’.
Haines’ brother Michael said his slain relative was a ‘force for good’ who had an ‘unrelenting desire’ to help people.
Michael Haines added that he forgave the terrorists so that they would not have ‘power over me’ any more.
The court heard from Dragana Haines, the widow of Haines, who burst into tears as she described getting breast cancer from the stress of his kidnap and killing – she is in remission.
She said: ‘I really hope both of you will live at least 200 years to hear about the death of everyone you care about. For all I care you can live long and suffer’.
Athea Haines, Haines daughter, told the court she was just four when her father was killed – she is 11 now.
The girl sobbed into her mothers arms as she said: ‘I miss him so much. Sometimes I get sad when I see my friends from school and club laughing and playing with their dads. That is something I will never have a chance to do again. It is not easy to be that kid in school whose dad was killed by terrorists’.
Next to speak was Lucy Henning, the daughter of Alan Henning, 47, a former taxi driver from Greater Manchester, who was working as a humanitarian worker in 2014 when he was abducted.
She described how she was scrolling through Instagram one day when she came across a picture of her father’s ‘body lying in the desert alone’.
In a dramatic moment, Shirly Sotloff, the mother of slain journalist Steven Sotloff, 31, walked closer to Kotey and Elsheikh to address them.
Raising her voice said: ‘I want the defendants to look at me. Elsheikh, don’t close your eyes. Keep them open and look at me!’
Sotloff had to twice more tell Elsheikh to pay attention, telling him: ‘Look at me!’
The court also heard from the parents of Kayla Mueller, 26, who was forced to be a sex slave for the former leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi before being killed
She said: ‘The sickness in our stomachs the minute we wake up and the psychological trauma that we relive over and over and over. We are forever broken by the loss of our beloved son and defined as the people from the horror movie’.
In a gut-wrenching statement Paula Kassig, the mother of aid worker Peter Kassig, 26, told the court: ‘Knowing that the man I rocked to sleep as an infant and whose hand I held when he was fearful as a child was being starved, beaten, tortured, and threatened with death every day for over a year while I was not able to help him at all was beyond my ability to cope’.
Her husband Edward said that the idea time heals is a lie, telling the court that ‘closure is something they say to make bystanders feel better’.
He said: ‘For us, the operating word is ‘forever’.
The court hear from the parents of Kayla Mueller, 26, who was forced to be a sex slave for the former leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi before being killed.
Her dad Carl said that Kotey and Elsheikh were ‘cowards’ and that the families reading statements were real ‘bravery’
He said: ‘I have always considered myself a religious man and a patriot but I lost my faith in god and my government because my government left my daughter there for 18 months…they would not allow us to negotiate, all they ever did was communicate’
Carl added that the prosecution has ‘restored’ his faith in the US government.
Michael Foley, the brother of journalist James Foley, 40, who was beheaded by The Beatles, told the court that James’ ‘greatest pain’ was knowing that his family were suffering.
But he said that his brother would say that ‘I’m more alive than ever’ in how he inspired others to follow his work.
There were tears in the public gallery and even Judge Ellis became emotional after the statements were read out, calling them ‘exceptionally moving and heart rending’
While Elsheikh (pictured) has not been charged in America over Mr Haines’ death due to America lacking jurisdiction, he is believed to have participated in the kidnapping, torture and beheading of 27 British, American and other foreign hostages in Syria
Judge Ellis said of the victims: ‘We should celebrate these individuals who demonstrated courage, purpose and compassion under the most difficult circumstances’.
Judge Ellis declined a request by the defense to request that Kotey be not sent to the Supermax Florence ADX prison in Colorado which is home to numerous terrorists – and is notoriously tough.
Kotey’s lawyer Marc Eisenstein said that Kotey’s conduct was ‘some of the worst the world has ever seen’
Prosecutor John Fitzpatrick called the victims ‘pure good’ and that they were on contrast to the ‘depraved’ conduct of the terrorists.
Kotey was extradited to the US under a deal whereby he will not face the death penalty.
After serving 15 years in the US he could serve the remainder of his sentence in the UK.
John Mohammed Emwazi, a Kuwaiti-born British citizen known as Jihadi John during an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant propaganda video. Emwazi was killed in an American drone strike in November 2015
During Elsheikh’s trial relatives of The Beatles’ victims heard horrific details of how they forced the captives to fight each other and waterboarded them.
Former hostages described how they were forced to watch as a Syrian prisoner was shot dead in front of them – then they had to get in a grave with the body and pose for photos.
According to Federico Motka, an Italian-born aid worker who went to boarding school in England, the group was motivated by a ‘hatred of the Western world’.
Kotey and Elsheikh were captured in 2018 as the Syrian Defense Forces recaptured territory from ISIS.
Kotey has a Ghanaian father and Greek Cypriot mother and was born in Hammersmith, West London, to a family of dress cutters.
He grew up in there and like Elsheikh was an avid supporter of QPR football club.
Both Kotey and Elsheikh were stripped of their UK citizenship by the British government before their extradition to the US.
Emwazi was killed in a 2015 drone strike while a fourth member of The Beatles, Aine Davis, is serving a prison sentence in Turkey.