LONDON: Alexanda Kotey, one of the so-called Daesh “Beatles” serving a life sentence for the torture and murder of Western hostages, has disappeared from the US prison system, the Daily Mail reported on Thursday.
Kotey was imprisoned in the US in August 2022 after pleading guilty to eight charges related to the abduction, torture and killing of Daesh hostages in Syria between 2012 and 2015.
The 39-year-old Londoner was the fourth member of an extremist cell that held up to two dozen Westerners captive. Hostages dubbed the group the “Beatles” because of their English accents.
Kotey was sent to Pennsylvania’s high-security Canaan prison, regarded as “one of the most dangerous penitentiaries in the country,” according to the Daily Mail.
However, Federal Bureau of Prisons records have recently revealed that he is no longer being held at Canaan.
A prisons spokesperson told the Daily Mail on Thursday that Kotey is not currently in the custody of the bureau, but did not explain why.
The official said that there are “several reasons” an inmate might be listed as not being in the system.
“Inmates who were previously in BOP custody and who have not completed their sentence may be outside BOP custody for a period of time for court hearings, medical treatment, or for other reasons,” the spokesperson said.
The bureau added that it does not disclose specific details about an inmate due to “safety, security or privacy reasons.”
The “Beatles” group is believed to have abducted and killed 27 people, including British aid worker David Haines. Propaganda videos posted online showed victims paraded in orange jumpsuits before being beheaded.
Haines’ daughter Bethany, 24, told the Daily Record on Wednesday that Kotey is most likely “assisting authorities” with investigations into another case.
“I don’t think it is right that he can just disappear from the system and the families whose lives were devastated by his actions are left to wonder where he is,” she said.
“In the past he has been traceable, as we have access to data via the US victim notification scheme, and we at least had the reassurance that he was in a high-security facility,” she added.
After being captured by Kurdish militia in Syria in January 2018, Kotey was handed over to American forces in Iraq in 2020 and later faced trial in the US over the killing of four American hostages. In exchange for his extradition, US authorities agreed not to seek the death penalty.
Kotey accepted a plea deal that included “cooperation requirements” to avoid serving his life sentence at the ADX Florence prison in Colorado, dubbed the “Alcatraz of the Rockies.”
