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This new interview with the Beatles jihadists involved in the kidnap and murder of Western hostages is less notable for what they say than the issues around how the interview was obtained and released. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/two-isis-terrorists-dubbed-beatles-admit-involvement-captivity-kayla-mueller-n1234584
In it Kotey and Elsheikh admit to greater involvement than previously acknowledged in the holding ofJames Foley, Kayla Mueller, Peter Kassig, Steven Sotloff, David Haines & Alan Henning. But we already know they were involved.
The circumstances under which the interview was obtained are not clear, but its release coincides with this opinion piece in which the families of the killed Americans call for the pair to be brought to the US for trial. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/23/our-children-were-killed-by-islamic-state-members-they-must-face-trial/
The parents want justice. Leaving these two to rot in some US black site in Iraq is not justice. They also want to find out what happened to their children, including where their bodies are. But there are also legal & ethical issues with these interviews worth considering.
These guys are in military custody without legal representation and face extradition and the death penalty in the US. It's worth asking whether an interview like this was given totally freely under those circumstances.
It looks like the interview was conducted when they were still held in Syria but we don't know who carried it out or how NBC got it. Here's an excellent background discussion on the ethics of journalists interviewing prisoners. https://cpj.org/2013/01/humanitarian-law-ethics-and-journalism-in-syria/
From a legal perspective, saturation coverage of these kinds of extremely prejudicial interviews could arguably also jeopardise their chances of a fair trial, as I imagine their eventual lawyers might try and argue.
I don’t raise these issues out of sympathy for the pair. I have spoken with two of the European hostages who were held by them. They do not sound like nice guys who need our sympathy.
But I do feel that rule of law, right to a fair trial and universal human rights are some of the best ideas our society has come up with. In our haste to punish those who rejected these values and joined ISIS, we seem ready to hand these guys a win by abandoining core values.
Finally, they are facing the death penalty if extradited to the US. Those in favour of capital punishment might see poetic justice in these guys getting put to death for their role in executing hostages. I personally am opposed, as the UK government is also supposed to be.
Reasonable people can disagree on capital punishment. But I’d argue that if they were executed the parallel between their barbarous deeds and the punishment would suggest that we are no better than them, just from a different tribe.
Better to give them the best of British justice, a fair trial in which their acts could be dispassionately proven, and a life sentence in which they could ponder the treatment they received while fading into obscurity.
