'ISIS Beatle' Kotey who was serving life sentence for murder disappears from US prison

Member of the notorious  ISIS terror cell dubbed as "The Beatles," Alexanda Kotey, 39,  who was serving a life sentence for the kidnap, torture, and murder of foreign journalists and aid workers in Syria, on Thursday, disappeared from the US Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) record, according to emerging reports on January 12. Also termed as the "Jihadi George", the native of London was nowhere to be found on the custody records of Pennsylvania's high-security Canaan prison as he mysteriously vanished. 

Kotey was sentenced to life in prison in the United States in April 2022 and was tried at a court after being nabbed in 2015 by the Kurdish forces in Syria.  Kotey and his co-conspirators spoke in British accents and were referred to by the hostages as the “Beatles.”

Faced eight count charges for brutal hostage-taking scheme

The "Jihadist George" pleaded guilty to eight counts of abduction, torture, and the beheading of western hostages during his trial which led to his imprisonment. His name on the records was now scrubbed from the Federal Bureau of Prison. According to the US Justice Department, Kotey and his three partners were sentenced for participating in the “seizure, detention and hostage negotiations” of four Americans, including James Foley, Kayla Mueller, Steven Sotloff, and Peter Kassig, along with 23 others between 2012 -2015.

The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) terrorists faced eight count charges for a brutal hostage-taking scheme that led to the deaths of four American citizens, and a British and Japanese national, in Syria. The US Justice Department, in the records, claimed that The Beatles members physically and psychologically abused the hostages. Kotey and his three other co-conspirators were accused of forcibly exposing the hostages to the murder of other hostages captured by ISIS. This included a Russian hostage who was killed around February 2014 and a Syrian prisoner who was executed in or about April 2014. European hostages were forced to witness the murder of Syrian prisoners during their captivity. 

In 2014, ISIS members published videos depicting the beheadings of James Foley, Steven Sotloff, and British citizens David Haines and Alan Henning. Kotey was also involved in releasing gruesome visuals depicting the decapitated body of Japanese citizen Haruna Yukawa and the beheading of Japanese citizen Kenji Goto. In 2015, Kayla Mueller’s family received an email from ISIS confirming Mueller’s death in Syria.

As of Thursday, records at Pennsylvania’s high-security Canaan prison, where Kotey was held, showed he was "Not in BOP custody." Kotey "is not currently in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons", Fox news digital quoted a prisoner spokesman, Randilee Giamusso, as saying, adding that there could be "several" explanations and speculations about his disappearance. "Inmates who were previously in BOP custody and who have not completed their sentence may be outside BOP custody for a period of time for court hearings, medical treatment, or for other reasons," Giamusso informed the outlet. Reports also suggested that Jihadi George might be assisting with investigations into other cases to track down the other ISIS members.