Page 28 - Bruce Hoffman News Today

A federal jury in Virginia is told that the ISIS leader on trial for terrorist acts that resulted in the gruesome deaths of four American hostages had a reputation for outsize brutality.

El Shafee Elsheikh was not a typical Islamic State foot soldier who took particular pleasure in mistreating the hostages he held captive, prosecutors said in opening statements of Elsheikh's terrorism trial.

An Italian aid worker who survived 14 months of captivity in Syria has testified about the sickening abuse he suffered at the hands of the so-called ISIS Beatles.  

El Shafee Elsheikh, 33, is accused of belonging to a cell that operated in Iraq and Syria, which members were nicknamed the Beatles for their British accents.

"If a hostage looked at any of the three men, they would be beaten," Gibbs said. "In fact, they did not have to do anything to be beaten."

Prosecutors told a federal jury that a British national on trial for terrorist acts that resulted in the gruesome deaths of four American hostages had a reputation for outsize brutality

El Shafee Elsheikh, a British national, is on trial for allegedly helping to kidnap and execute four Americans, including a young woman from Arizona.

Elsheikh is accused of a playing a leadership role in an Islamic State cell.

Would Putin strike NATO supply lines to Ukraine? History suggests no

From the Soviets in Afghanistan to the U.S. in Korea, Moscow and Washington have often chosen not to attack the countries aiding their enemies.