The daughter of a British hostage beheaded by the ISIS Beatles terror cell has expressed “delight” after gang member El Shafee Elsheikh lost his bid to be transferred from a US prison to a British jail — declaring she hopes he will “rot for the rest of his days in America, thousands of miles away from us.”
Bethany Haines, 29, whose father David was abducted from a Syrian refugee camp in 2013 and murdered by Elsheikh and his fellow ISIS Beatles the following year, welcomed the decision but made clear her relief was tempered by anger at how long the process had taken. “I’m delighted but why so long?” she said. “They could have knocked him back straight away rather than putting us through all this anguish. I hope he will now rot for the rest of his days in America, thousands of miles away from us.”
Elsheikh, 38, known as Jihadi Ringo, had applied last year to transfer from his prison in Colorado to a British jail — despite having had his UK citizenship stripped in 2018. The application has now been formally denied.
Sudan-born Elsheikh grew up in London and was part of the four-strong ISIS cell that became known as The Beatles among the hostages they tortured and killed, owing to their distinctive British accents. The cell’s other members were Alexanda Kotey, Mohammed Emwazi — known as Jihadi John, who was killed in a drone strike — and Aine Davis. Together they murdered David Haines alongside four American citizens and subjected numerous other Western hostages to prolonged torture.
Elsheikh was captured in 2018 and sentenced to life in prison in the United States in 2022 after being convicted of hostage-taking, conspiracy and other terrorism-related charges. His failed transfer application means he will continue to serve that sentence in the US rather than returning to British soil.
