"No fair trial when I am the Beatle" says British IS member

(31 Mar 2018) Two British members of the Islamic State group (IS) believed to have belonged to a cell notorious for beheading hostages in northern Syria said on Friday that their home country's revoking of their citizenship denies them the possibility of fair trial. The men, along with two other British jihadis, allegedly made up the IS cell nicknamed "The Beatles" by surviving captives because of their English accents. They were unrepentant about belonging to IS - though they said they did not agree with everything it did. But they seemed dismissive of the idea that IS was egregious in brutality. "I am not here to justify or shun every act IS did," El Shafee Elsheikh said, arguing that nationals of a country cannot be held responsible for crimes by the state. They scoffed at the idea that they were a cell and refused to comment whether they had worked as jailors, had ever seen any hostages, or knew the leader of the cell, Mohammed Emwazi. Emwazi was dubbed "Jihadi John" in the British media. They depicted the allegations as created by media and foreign intelligence - "the accusations put forward to the media and the witnesses to those accusations, meaning the foreign hostages that were released, have already been told who they are supposed to say were the culprits for media," Alexanda Amon Kotey said. "No fair trial, when I am 'the Beatle' in the media. No fair trial," Elsheikh added. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you... Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork