Lawyers for El Shafee Elsheikh, a British jihadist on trial in a US federal court for his role in the kidnap and murder of four Americans while he was a member of Isis, denied that he was a member of the infamous ‘Beatles’ terror cell and claimed a case of mistaken identity at the start of his trial.
During opening statements of the trial in Alexandria, Virginia, Edward MacMahon described his client as a “simple Isis soldier,” and claimed the evidence would show that Elsheikh was not a member of the so-called Isis ‘Beatles,’ a name given to a group of four British Isis fighters by Western hostages.
