A US court on Friday sentenced to life in prison a former member of the “Beatles” cell, which specialized in capturing, torturing and executing hostages from Western countries in the jihadist group “Islamic State” (IS), El-Shafi el-Sheikh, reports AFP. , reports News.ro.

El Shafi el-Sheikh, 34, who wore a beard, large glasses and a protective mask, did not react when the sentence was announced in this court in Alexandria, near Washington.

El-Shafi el-Sheikh’s actions were “heinous, barbaric, brutal and certainly criminal,” said federal judge TS Ellis as he sentenced him to eight concurrent life terms for the murders of the four Americans.

His lawyers said they would appeal the decision.

He was arrested by Syrian Kurdish forces in 2018.

In April, a grand jury found him guilty after a harrowing trial that featured the Beatles’ sadism.

A jury of 12 deliberated for less than six hours – over two days – before finding him guilty of murdering journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and aid workers Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller.

“This trial has exposed the brutal human rights crimes you committed,” Diana Foley, the journalist’s mother, said exactly eight years after IS released a video of his beheading.

“Your hate crimes have not won,” she said.

El Shafi el-Sheikh was arrested along with another alleged Beatles member, Alexandra Cotey, 38, a former British citizen.

The two were handed over to US forces in Iraq and sent to the United States in 2020 for trial.

Aleksanda Kotey pleaded guilty in September 2021 and was sentenced to life in prison in April by the same judge, TS Ellis.

Another alleged member of the Beatles, Aine Davies, 38, was charged and appeared in British justice last week in London after being deported from Turkey.

The cell’s best-known member, Briton Mohammed Emwazi, alias “Jihadi John,” was killed in Syria during a US drone strike in 2015.

He appeared on several videos of beheadings.

The history of the jihadist cell of the Beatles

Four members of The Beatles, which operated in Syria between 2012 and 2015, all radicalized in London, are accused of overseeing the detention of at least 27 journalists and aid workers from the United States, Great Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Japan, New Zealand and Russia.

The name “The Beatles” was given to them by the Western hostages because of their British accent.

The group gained sinister notoriety by staging the execution of hostages in excruciating propaganda videos.

At El-Shafi el-Sheikh’s trial, ten former European and Syrian hostages presented atrocities they suffered at the hands of The Beatles, such as simulated drowning, electrocution or simulated execution.

This week, British police revealed that the preparation of the Beatles file resembled a decade of putting together a “puzzle of very small pieces”.

“We followed the crumbs, actually the fragments, from a huge number of other investigations,” Richard Smith, the head of the counter-terrorism unit of the London police, told reporters on Wednesday.