Daesh ‘Beatles’ made captives watch and listen to torture of other hostages, trial hears

Alexanda Kotey and Shafee Elsheikh, in these undated handout pictures in Amouda, Syria released on February 9, 2018. (Reuters/File Photo)
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Updated 09 April 2022
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Daesh ‘Beatles’ made captives watch and listen to torture of other hostages, trial hears

  • French photographer Edouard Elias tells court he was deprived of food, sleep, and dragged through the blood of fellow captives
  • Former UK citizen El Shafee Elsheikh on trial in US, accused of role in the kidnapping and deaths of several Western hostages in Syria

LONDON: A French war photographer has told the trial of one of the four Daesh “Beatles” how he and other prisoners of the group tried to commit suicide to escape their tormentors.

Edouard Elias, who was captured by Daesh in Syria in June 2013, reportedly told the court in Alexandria, Virginia: “We found plastic bags and ropes. We tried to find a way of suicide.”

Elias, 30, was speaking at the trial of former British national El Shafee Elsheikh, who is accused of playing a key role in the kidnapping and deaths of four Americans, aid workers Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig, and journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff.

The photojournalist was captured within an hour of entering Syria from Turkey with colleague Didier Francois, and after being taken to Aleppo and accused of working for the CIA, was held for 10 months by Elsheikh and the other Daesh “Beatles,” a nickname earned because they all had British accents.

Elias described them as “professionals,” detailing how they would wear black masks, military fatigues and boots rather than the casual dress of their fellow Daesh members, carried Glock pistols at all times, and how seriously they took torturing their captives.

He said they would goad each other into snapping the fingers of their victims, and would make them sing a version of the song “Hotel California,” emphasizing a lyric at the end which states “you can never leave.”

Elias told the court: “They repeated it again and again, laughing. I cannot listen to that song anymore.”

The photographer said he had been chained to a radiator and deprived of food and water for three days after he was first captured, causing him to hallucinate.

He was deprived of sleep by being regularly beaten and forced to listen to the screams of other captured Westerners. He was also forced to watch other detainees being tortured after he was moved to another facility called “The Eye Hospital.”

He said: “I was very scared because I thought I would be next. You could see their blood everywhere. When they took me out of the room for interrogation, they dragged me through the blood of the other victims.”

Elias also described Danish photographer Dan Rye, who he met in captivity and was held by the group for over a year, as “not like a human being, just a corpse, like a body barely breathing.”

After he was transferred to the custody of the “Beatles,” he said they would regularly enter cells to beat detainees by making them kneel facing walls before assaulting them. He said prisoners were forced to pose in orange jumpsuits for videos pleading to be ransomed, and described how he was transferred from Aleppo to Raqqa as part of a Daesh convoy that he compared to a scene from the film “Mad Max.”

He said he was held in Raqqa at a jail called “The Oil Facility” from February 2014 until his release, where 18 prisoners were packed into a cell with only a bucket for a toilet.

One day the “Beatles” removed a man from the cell and returned days later to show the remaining prisoners images of the man’s head with a bullet wound. Elias added that, when prisoners were released, their former jailers would beat other cellmates as they departed, warning them not to talk to the media, and threatening to kill the remaining hostages if their ransom demands were not met.


Qatari minister arrives in Damascus on first Qatar Airways flight since Assad’s Fall

Updated 19 sec ago
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Qatari minister arrives in Damascus on first Qatar Airways flight since Assad’s Fall


Iran foreign ministry affirms support for Syria’s sovereignty

Updated 18 min 52 sec ago
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Iran foreign ministry affirms support for Syria’s sovereignty

  • Assad fled Syria earlier this month as rebel forces led by the Sunni Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) entered the capital Damascus

Tehran: Iran affirmed its support for Syria’s sovereignty on Monday, and said the country should not become “a haven for terrorism” after the fall of president Bashar Assad, a longtime Tehran ally.
“Our principled position on Syria is very clear: preserving the sovereignty and integrity of Syria and for the people of Syria to decide on its future without destructive foreign interference,” foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said in a weekly press briefing.
He added that the country should not “become a haven for terrorism,” saying such an outcome would have “repercussions” for countries in the region.
Assad fled Syria earlier this month as rebel forces led by the Sunni Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) entered the capital Damascus after a lightning offensive.
The takeover by HTS — proscribed as a terrorist organization by many governments including the United States — has sparked concern, though the group has in recent years sought to moderate its image.
Headed by Ahmed Al-Sharaa, Syria’s new leader and an ardent opponent of Iran, the group has spoken out against the Islamic republic’s influence in Syria under Assad.
Tehran helped prop up Assad during Syria’s long civil war, providing him with military advisers.
During Monday’s press briefing, Baqaei said Iran had “no direct contact” with Syria’s new rulers.
Sharaa has received a host of foreign delegations since coming to power.
He met on Sunday with Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan, and on Monday with Jordan’s top diplomat Ayman Safadi.
On Friday, the United States’ top diplomat for the Middle East Barbara Leaf held a meeting with Sharaa, later saying she expected Syria would completely end any role for Iran in its affairs.
A handful of European delegations have also visited in recent days.
Regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia, which has long supported Syria’s opposition, is expected to send a delegation soon, according to Syria’s ambassador in Riyadh.


Iran says ‘no direct contact’ with Syria rulers

Updated 19 min 37 sec ago
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Iran says ‘no direct contact’ with Syria rulers

  • Foreign ministry spokesman: ‘We have no direct contact with the ruling authority in Syria’

TEHRAN: Iran said Monday it had “no direct contact” with Syria’s new rulers after the fall of president Bashar Assad, a longtime Tehran ally.
“We have no direct contact with the ruling authority in Syria,” foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said at a weekly press briefing.


Jordan foreign minister holds talks with Syria’s new leader

Updated 36 min 46 sec ago
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Jordan foreign minister holds talks with Syria’s new leader

  • It was the first visit by a senior Jordanian official since Bashar Assad’s fall

AMMAN: Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi met with Syria’s new leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa in Damascus on Monday, Amman said, the latest high-profile visit since Bashar Assad’s ouster.

Images distributed by the Jordanian foreign ministry showed Safadi and Sharaa shaking hands, without offering further details about their meeting.

A foreign ministry statement earlier said that Safadi would meet with the new Syrian leader as well as with “several Syrian officials.”

It was the first visit by a senior Jordanian official since Assad’s fall.

Jordan, which borders Syria to the south, hosted a summit earlier this month where top Arab, Turkish, EU and US diplomats called for an inclusive and peaceful transition after years of civil war.

Sharaa, whose Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) spearheaded the offensive that toppled Assad on December 8, has welcomed senior officials from a host of countries in the Middle East and beyond in recent days.

Jordanian government spokesman Mohamed Momani told reporters on Sunday that Amman “sides with the will of the brotherly Syrian people,” stressing the close ties between the two nations.

Momani said the kingdom would like to see security and stability restored in Syria, and supported “the unity of its territories.”

Stability in war-torn Syria was in Jordan’s interests, Momani said, and would “ensure security on its borders.”

Some Syrians who had fled the war since 2011 and sought refuge in Jordan have begun returning home, according to Jordanian authorities.

The interior ministry said Thursday that more than 7,000 Syrians had left, out of some 1.3 million refugees Amman says it has hosted.

According to the United Nations, 680,000 Syrian refugees were registered with it in Jordan.

Jordan in recent years has tightened border controls in a crackdown on drug and weapon smuggling along its 375-kilometer border with Syria.

One of the main drugs smuggled is the amphetamine-like stimulant captagon, for which there is huge demand in the oil-rich Gulf.


Israeli airstrikes on Gaza kill at least 20 people, Palestinian medics say

Updated 49 min 34 sec ago
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Israeli airstrikes on Gaza kill at least 20 people, Palestinian medics say

  • Israel’s air and ground offensive has killed over 45,200 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry till date

Palestinian medics say Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip have killed at least 20 people.
One of the strikes overnight and into Monday hit a tent camp in the Muwasi area, an Israel-declared humanitarian zone, killing eight people, including two children. That’s according to the Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis, which received the bodies.
Hospital records show another six killed in a strike on people securing an aid convoy and another two killed in a strike on a car in Muwasi. One person was killed in a separate strike in the area.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir Al-Balah said three bodies arrived after an airstrike on a school-turned-shelter in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp.
The Israeli military says it only strikes militants, accusing them of hiding among civilians. It said late Sunday that it had targeted a Hamas militant in the humanitarian zone.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 hostage. Around 100 captives are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s air and ground offensive has killed over 45,200 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry says women and children make up more than half the dead but does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally. The military says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.