Trump Administration Willing To Drop Death Penalty For ISIS Detainees To Secure UK Cooperation In Prosecution

The Trump administration is willing to drop the death penalty for two admitted ISIS detainees in order to secure British cooperation for key evidence in the detainees' prosecution, the Washington Post reported Friday. El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey — British-born detainees who are currently being held in Al Asad air base in Iraq — have been accused of involvement in the executions of American, British and other foreign hostages in Syria.

Elsheikh and Kotey are two members of a British-born quartet of ISIS militants known as the “Beatles.” Another member, Aine Davis, was convicted on terrorist charges in Turkey. The fourth member, Mohammed Emwazi, also known as “Jihadi John,” was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2015.

In March, the British Supreme Court ruled that the government had to withhold key evidence on the case because the Trump administration had not promised that the men would not be executed. Both Barr and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions had not been willing to remove the death penalty as a potential punishment for the two men. The U.K. has long abolished the death penalty.

The Defense Department is currently trying to determine where to hold Elsheikh and Kotey, with Secretary Mark Esper setting a deadline of July 31 for a decision on the matter.

“[The Defense Department] does not want to hold them indefinitely in Iraq or elsewhere,” a Pentagon official told the Post. “The temporary facility that they are currently in was never designed to house detainees for extended periods of time.”

The military does not intend to send the two ISIS detainees to Guantanamo Bay.

Elsheikh and Kotey were stripped of their British citizenship in 2018. The “Beatles” had been involved in the kidnapping of humanitarian aid worker Kayla Mueller, who had been killed by ISIS in 2015. American journalist James Foley was beheaded by “Jihadi John” in 2014, with American-Israeli journalist Steven Sotloff also being killed by Emwazi a month later.

ISIS emerged as a major terrorist threat in 2014 after it took over large swaths of Iraq and Syria. By December 2017, the group had lost 95% of its territory in the Middle East.