Two British militants believed to have been part of an Islamic State cell notorious for beheading hostages in Syria have complained they will not be given a fair trial.

The men, along with two other British jihadists, allegedly made up the Isis cell nicknamed “the Beatles” by surviving captives because of their English accents.

In 2014 and 2015, the cell held more than 20 western hostages in Syria. It beheaded seven American, British and Japanese journalists and aid workers and a group of Syrian soldiers, boasting of the butchery in videos released to the world.

Speaking to the Associated Press at a Kurdish security centre, El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey, repeatedly refused to address allegations they were part of the cell.



They were captured in January in eastern Syria by the Kurdish-led, US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces amid the collapse of Isis.

The two said the killings of the captives were a mistake but for tactical reasons. Many in Isis would have disagreed with the killings “on the grounds that there is probably more benefit in them being political prisoners”, Kotey said.

“I didn’t see any benefit [in killing them]. It was something that was regrettable.” He blamed western governments for failing to negotiate, noting that some hostages were released for ransoms.

The beheadings, often carried out on camera, horrified the world soon after Isis took over much of Iraq and Syria in 2014. The group also committed widescale atrocities including massacring thousands of Iraqi troops and civilians and taking sex slaves.

The first victim was the American journalist James Foley, followed by fellow Americans Steven Sotloff and Peter Kassig, the British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning and the Japanese journalists Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto.

The leader of the cell, Mohammed Emwazi, was nicknamed “Jihadi John” in the British media after he appeared, masked, in the videos. He was killed in a US-led coalition drone strike in 2015 in the Syrian city of Raqqa, the de facto Isis capital. Another member, Aine Davis, was arrested in Turkey and convicted there in 2017, sentenced to seven years in prison.

Elsheikh, whose family came to Britain from Sudan when he was a child, was a mechanic from White City in west London.

He travelled to Syria in 2012, initially joining al-Qaida’s branch before moving on to Isis, according to the US state department. It said he had “earned a reputation for waterboarding, mock executions and crucifixions while serving as an [Isis] jailer”.

Kotey, who is of Ghanaian and Greek-Cypriot descent and converted to Islam in his 20s, is from Paddington in west London.

He served in the Isis cell as a guard, and “likely engaged in the group’s executions and exceptionally cruel torture methods”, the state department said.

Alexanda Kotey, right, and El Shafee Elsheikh are masked as they are moved through a Kurdish security centre in Syria. Photograph: Hussein Malla/AP

The pair scoffed at the idea that that they were a cell and depicted the allegations as having been created by media and foreign intelligence.

“No fair trial when I am ‘the Beatle’ in the media,” Elsheikh said.

The two denounced the British government’s reported decision in February to strip them of citizenship as “illegal”. The decision was widely reported in British media, though officials have not confirmed or denied it, citing privacy rules.

“When you have these two guys who don’t even have any citizenship ... if we just disappear one day, where is my mom going to go and say where is my son,” Elsheikh said.

Kotey said the fairest venue for a trial may be the international criminal court in the Hague in the Netherlands.

In February, the home secretary, Amber Rudd, hinted that the pair could be returned to the UK to face trial.

She said: “The important thing is that they have been arrested and the important thing is, to us, that they will face trial.”