El Shafee Elsheikh (born 16 July 1988) was an Islamic State executioner who was called "George" by IS hostages due to his British accent and his affiliation with "The Beatles" terrorist cell.
Biography[]
El Shafee Elsheikh was born in 1988 in Sudan to a Sunni Muslim family, and his family emigrated to the United Kingdom during the 1990s. Elsheikh worked as a fairground mechanic in London, where his family lived, but he befriended a fellow Muslim whose father advocated jihad.
Elsheikh was radicalized while listening to a CD of radical Islamist sermons from the preacher Hani al-Sibai, and he decided to become an Islamic State fighter with his younger brother Mahmoud after their older brother Khalid was imprisoned. Mahmoud, only seventeen, was killed in action during the Syrian Civil War. El Shafee became an executioner, and he had two wives and two young children while fighting for ISIS.
In late 2014 and 2015, he became infamous due to being counted among "The Beatles", a group of British Islamists who had been sent to guard IS hostages. He led The Beatles, and he repeated sections of the Quran and publicly promoted IS' extremist views. On 24 January 2018, he and his friend Alexanda Kotey were captured by the SDF.
On 7 October 2020, he and Kotey were charged in a US court. On 30 March 2022 he was put on trial in Virginia, United States. He pleaded guilty to all charges.