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ALEXANDRIA, Va. — By Might 2014, American hostage Peter Kassig was shedding hope that he would survive his captivity by the hands of the Islamic State group.
“Dad, I am paralyzed right here. I am afraid to struggle again. A part of me nonetheless has hope. A part of me is bound I’ll die,” he wrote to his father, Ed Kassig, who learn the letter from the witness stand Wednesday on the terrorism trial of British nationwide El Shafee Elsheikh.
The testimony left many within the courtroom combating again tears in what’s to this point been a two-week trial that has detailed in grotesque methods the brutality inflicted on greater than 20 Western hostages held captive by the Islamic State roughly a decade in the past.
Even the decide, T.S. Ellis III, gave the impression to be combating again tears as he referred to as an early recess within the proceedings instantly following Kassig’s testimony.
Elsheikh — higher often called one in all “the Beatles,” a moniker given by the hostages to a number of of their captors who spoke with distinctive British accents — is accused of taking a number one position within the hostage-taking scheme that resulted within the deaths of 4 Individuals: Kassig, James Foley, Steven Sotloff and Kayla Mueller. Kassig, Foley and Sotloff have been beheaded in movies distributed internationally. Mueller was raped by Islamic State chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi earlier than she was killed.
Kassig’s lengthy, handwritten letter was delivered to his household by a launched hostage. Peter Kassig wrote that his captors tried to inform him and the opposite hostages that that they had been deserted by their households and their international locations for refusing to satisfy the Islamic State’s calls for.
“However after all we all know you’re doing all the pieces you’ll be able to and extra. Don’t be concerned Dad, if I do go down I will not go considering something however what I do know to be true, that you just and Mother love me greater than the moon!” Peter Kassig wrote.
He wrote that “if I do die, I determine that not less than you and I can take some refuge and luxury in understanding that I went out because of making an attempt to alleviate struggling and serving to these in want.”
Kassig, an assist employee, was taken hostage in Syria in 2013. He had began his personal nonprofit group to supply medical coaching and provides to areas past the attain of among the bigger assist teams.
Additionally Wednesday, the jury heard testimony from an FBI agent who helped plan an effort to rescue hostages in July 2014 that in the end failed as a result of the hostages had been moved from a desert jail south of Raqqa earlier than the rescue try.
And so they heard testimony from French hostage Nicolas Henin, who survived 300 days of captivity earlier than his launch in 2014. Underneath questioning from First Assistant U.S. Legal professional Raj Parekh, Henin described escaping a number of days after he was taken hostage, and the torture inflicted on him when he was recaptured.
Henin mentioned he requested his guards for a brush to wash up his cell, and he used the broom to assist knock free the bars masking a window. He crawled by the window in the midst of the evening and ran for miles throughout the Syrian desert till he got here to a village close to the town of Raqqa, an Islamic State stronghold, the place he sought assist.
“I met two individuals in pajamas,” he mentioned. “Sadly you’ll be able to’t acknowledge an ISIS fighter of their pajamas. They took me to the native police station.”
The authorities returned him to his captors, who beat him, strung him up within the air dangling from handcuffs that dug into his flesh within the Syrian solar, and at last left him in a cell for 11 days along with his wrists chained to his ankles.
In his later months of captivity, he got here throughout the Beatles, who have been already acknowledged by his fellow hostages as significantly sadistic. He mentioned the three Beatles would repeatedly inflict beatings, and that the Beatle they dubbed “Ringo” would regularly lecture the hostages on the justification for his or her captivity.
“They have been making an attempt to clarify to us that though we weren’t carrying weapons, we have been nonetheless in some way a form of fighter within the struggle between the infidel West and Islam,” Henin mentioned.
Prosecutors have mentioned that Elsheikh is “Ringo,” although not one of the hostages who has but testified has been in a position to explicitly determine him. Witnesses have mentioned all of the Beatles took nice pains to maintain their faces totally masked once they have been in touch with the hostages.
“They appreciated to think about that so long as they have been masked, they have been shielded from prosecution. This was perhaps a silly thought,” Henin mentioned, grinning broadly within the route of Elsheikh, who sat simply toes from him on the protection desk.
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