Alexanda Kotey: Islamic State 'Beatle' jihadist to be sentenced

An Islamic State group militant from the UK is due to be sentenced in a US federal court on Friday over his involvement with a notorious hostage-taking terror cell.

Alexanda Kotey, 37, pleaded guilty last September to eight criminal charges relating to the abduction, torture and beheading of IS hostages in Syria.

He faces a mandatory life sentence.

El Shafee Elsheikh, 33, a recently convicted co-conspirator, will also appear at the sentencing.

Hostages said Kotey, Elsheikh and a third man, Mohammed Emwazi, were member of an IS cell they nicknamed "the Beatles" - after the band - because of their British accents. Emwazi was killed in Syria in 2015.

A fourth man - Aine Davis - found guilty of being a senior member of a terrorist organisation and currently jailed in Turkey, is also believed to be part of the cell.

The group's actions are said to have resulted in the deaths of four US hostages: journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and aid workers Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig.

They are also blamed in the deaths of British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, and Japanese journalists Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto.

The family members of former hostages will deliver victim impact statements in the courtroom in Alexandria, Virginia prior to the sentencing.

Judge TS Ellis has ordered Elsheikh, who is to be sentenced in August, to be present at the hearing so that the statements need not be delivered twice by grieving families.

Elsheikh was found guilty by a federal jury earlier this month, on eight counts of lethal hostage taking and conspiracy to commit murder.

David Haines' daughter Bethany was present on each day of the Elsheikh trial. She shared a preview of her statement exclusively with the BBC.

In it, she says: "I haven't had a good night's sleep since before my dad was taken. I wake up during the night hearing my dad's screams as he is being tortured by these men."

She says grief has transformed her from "a popular and bubbly person with lots of friends" to somebody who shuts herself off from the world and cannot work or study.

Ms Haines also asks to directly address the two defendants so that she can tell them they have lost - both their family and their freedom and need to repent.

"No matter what you say this was not about religion. The only thing you can do that would help the victims would be to give up the location of the remains of our loved ones."

Kotey and Elsheikh are the highest profile IS fighters to face justice in the US.

The two West Londoners were stripped of their British citizenship in 2018 but may yet return to the UK to face additional charges relating to their British hostages.