Alexanda Kotey

Alexanda Amon Kotey (born 13 December 1983), known as Jihadi George, is a stateless former British citizen, drug dealer, and terrorist serving life in prison at the ADX Florence supermax prison in Colorado for providing material support to the Islamic State and hostage taking resulting in death. Kotey has admitted to being one of the four "Jihadi Beatles" who took part in atrocities in the Syrian Civil War. He is serving eight concurrent life sentences without the possibility of parole.

Active in the Islamic State until 2015, Kotey was captured by the Syrian Democratic Forces along with El Shafee Elsheikh attempting to enter Turkey while fleeing from the collapse of the Islamic State in Syria. He has been designated a terrorist by the United States.

Born in Britain to a Ghanaian father and Greek Cypriot mother, Kotey spent his youth in Shepherd's Bush. The Daily Telegraph reported that he was a supporter of Queens Park Rangers F.C. and dreamed of joining the team when he grew up. Syrian Democratic Forces holding him in detention say Kotey was engaged in a criminal career as a drug dealer in London prior to his radicalisation. He is believed to have converted to Islam in his early twenties and left his two young children behind in Britain.

In 2014 and 2015, the Islamic State held dozens of European and North American captives, and the brutal conditions of their detention were widely reported. Four English-speaking ISIL fighters played a central role in the brutality. Their identities were initially either not known, or security officials did not make their identities known to the public, so the press dubbed the four as the Jihadi Beatles, with the most well-known being known as Jihadi John. Later Kotey was reported to have been one of the other three Beatles.

On 10 January 2017, the United States Department of State formally designated Kotey as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under the authority of Executive Order 13224. This designation prohibited American citizens, financial institutions, and other American corporations, from having any financial dealings with him.^{[citation needed]}

The US claims that Kotey was involved in beheadings and known for administering "exceptionally cruel torture methods", including "electronic shocks". He was accused of acting as an ISIL recruiter and being responsible for inducing several other British extremists to join ISIL. Kotey has denied being a member of "the Beatles", but admitted to having joined the ISIL terrorist group.

ISIL-controlled areas of Syria and Iraq underwent a steady erosion in 2015, 2016 and 2017, with their remaining enclaves collapsing in late 2017 and early 2018. On 24 January 2018, Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, a friend from London who was also reported to have been one of the Jihadi Beatles, were captured in Syria while attempting to flee to Turkey.

The Independent reported that the United Kingdom government was considering agreeing that Kotey and Elsheikh could be transferred to the Guantanamo detention camps. Detention in Guantanamo might mean indefinite detention without charge; if transferred to US custody for a civilian trial and convicted, they would likely be detained at the Supermax prison near Florence, Colorado. Another option under consideration was trial at the International Court in The Hague. Tobias Ellwood of the UK Ministry of Defence had argued that transfer to Guantanamo was inappropriate.