Mother ‘begged for life' of IS hostage, court hears

Parents of a US humanitarian worker killed by the Islamic State begged for her life in emails to her captors, a court has heard.

Kayla Mueller, 26, was one of several people who died at the hands of a Syria-based IS terror cell dubbed the Beatles due to their British accents.

On Tuesday, her mother Marsha spoke at the federal trial of El Shafee Elsheikh, 33, known as "Jihadi George".

He has denied charges of hostage-taking and conspiracy to murder.

Mr Elsheikh, the only one of the four men to face trial in the US as part of the notorious cell, has been linked to at least 27 abductions, but has asserted that he was not part of the group.

The Sudanese-born Londoner, who was stripped of his British citizenship in 2018, is accused of taking hostages, resulting in the deaths of four Americans - Ms Mueller, journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and aid worker Peter Kassig.

He is also charged with conspiring in the deaths of British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, and Japanese journalists Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto.

In opening statements last week, his lawyer argued that he was "a simple ISIS fighter" who went to Syria alone to support "suffering Muslims".

But prosecutors played back past media interviews with Mr Elsheikh that contradict the claim he was not involved in the hostage taking scheme.

During one interview, Mr Elsheikh describes asking the jailed Ms Mueller for an email address to reach her family, although he goes on to say he never sent any emails.

Inside the Virginia courthouse on Tuesday, Ms Mueller's mother described exchanging several emails with the IS captors, in which she begged for her daughter's life.

In their first contact with the so-called Beatles, she and her husband Carl were asked to submit proof of life questions for Ms Mueller to answer.

Later emails include a video addressed to then-IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in which Martha wore a hijab "to show respect".

The Beatles wrote back demanding either a ransom of five million euros or the release of jihadist Aafia Siddiqui from a US federal prison, within 30 days.

Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman sometimes known as "Lady Al-Qaeda", is serving 86 years for the attempted murder of US soldiers.

When the Muellers replied they were retired and the payoff was "more than [what] we could earn in several lifetimes", the captors wrote: "get back to work", the court heard.

Marsha sat just yards away from the accused, who sat still leaning back in his chair and took no notes during the testimony.

As the court broke for lunch, Omar Alkhani, who was Ms Mueller's boyfriend and was attending court with her family, got up from his seat, lent over the bar and pointed towards Mr Elsheikh as he was being escorted out.

Mr Alkhani raised his voice in Arabic and said: "He is in hell you will see him there," in an apparent reference to the former commander of the prison where Ms Mueller had been held before she died.

The Elsheikh trial continues and is expected to last three to four weeks.