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UK expects US trial for Syria 'Beatles' fighters

By AFP - Jul 24,2018 - Last updated at Jul 24,2018

LONDON — Britain said Monday it was sharing intelligence to help the United States bring to trial two British fighters captured in Syria, known as the "Beatles", and would not block the death penalty.

Security Minister Ben Wallace told MPs that a British trial was unlikely for Alexanda Amon Kotey and El Shafee El Sheikh, who he said were not actually British citizens, after the government had unusually stripped them of their nationality.

But the decision to seek no assurances that they would not face the death penalty drew anger from lawmakers, while Amnesty International called it "deeply worrying".

"We do not think we have the evidence here to try them in the United Kingdom... it is likely [this] is a trial that is carried out in the United States," Wallace told the House of Commons.

He added: "When the request came in for sharing of evidence, this government took the decision — rare at is it — to share that evidence without seeking assurances."

Kotey and Sheikh were part of a four-member kidnapping gang within the Daesh group dubbed "The Beatles" by their captives due to their heavy British accents. 

They were notorious for videotaping beheadings and are believed to have killed American journalist James Foley and many Western aid workers.

"We're not talking about UK citizens," Wallace said.

The fate of the pair was discussed in a letter by British Home Secretary Sajid Javid to US Attorney General Jeff Sessions, which was leaked to the Daily Telegraph.

The decision not to demand assurances on the death penalty sparked an emergency Commons debate on Monday, to which Wallace responded.

He said assurances might "get in the way" of a future trial, but insisted: "Our longstanding position on the use of the death penalty has not changed."

However, opposition Labour MPs accused the government of having "unilaterally ripped up" years of British policy.

Foley's mother Diane told BBC radio that her son's killers should go to jail but said putting them to death "would just make them martyrs in their twisted ideology".

Wallace said Britain "will not share information with the United States if those individuals were going to end up in Guantanamo Bay", the US detention camp on Cuba.

But he added: "We should not forget that the crimes that we're talking about involve the beheading and videoing of those beheading dozens of innocent people by one of the most abhorrent organisations walking this earth."

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces  caught Kotey in January as he tried to flee Syria for Turkey, while a US defence official announced in February that Sheikh had also been captured by Syrian rebel forces.

Wallace said: "The individuals that we're talking about, or foreign fighters at the moment in general, are currently held by non-state actors in Syria.

"That is a big challenge for all European states and indeed the US about how those people are brought back."

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