Bethany Haines, whose father David was killed by the so-called Islamic State, spoke to ITV News Global Security editor Rohit Kachroo after coming face to face with one of the terrorist cells that killed him. One of the killers told the daughter of a humanitarian aid worker killed by the Islamic State that her father had asked Jihadi John’s executioner “please do it quickly” after he was found “by chance”. David Haynes was one of those abducted and executed by a gang of four Islamic State fighters called “Beatles” because of their British accent, who committed unpredictable acts of violence in the mid-2010s. His body was never found and his daughter, Bethany, was seeking answers to her father’s murder in September 2014. During a two-hour meeting in Virginia with “Beatle” Alexanda Kotey, who hails from Paddington, London, Bethany told ITV News that she was given new details about how her father was followed before his abduction and how his martyrdom was prolonged. “He told me that Jihadi John had left to execute my father; and he said, ‘Can you do it quickly?’ “He was talking about my father’s execution by Jihadi John and it was surreal,” she said, referring to Mohamed Emouazi, the man known as Jihadi John who killed Haynes. “And he told me that Jihadi John had gone to execute my father and my father knew what was going on and he said – he closed his eyes, we saw the photo – and he said ‘can you do it fast?’” Kotey revealed to Bethany that her father’s death was delayed to give his killers time to film from different angles for their propaganda video. The 38-year-old pleaded guilty last September to leading a plot to torture, ransom and oust four American hostages, including journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and humanitarian workers Peter Kassig and Kayla. The Beatles were also responsible for the killings of several Western prisoners, believed to include Haynes. For the first time, Bethany heard how Kotey, who is now serving eight life sentences, claimed that her father had been arrested by the terrorist group and eventually killed. “They had found my father by chance; they followed them” “I came in with a lot of questions, maps and ended up using almost none of them because the discussion was so easy,” he said. “He was open … that he did kidnap my father personally. He told me that by chance they found my father and Federico [another aid worker] a couple of days before being abducted. “And they followed them and put them in a queue and finally they went and kidnapped them, so that was new.” Under the terms of his deal, Kotey could be taken to the United Kingdom to serve part of his sentence and could also face further trial for the deaths of Mr Haines and another Briton, Alan Henning. David Haines and his daughter Bethany Credit: Brochure Kotey, who refused to apologize for Mr. Haines’s death during an interview with ITV News in 2019, said he felt sorry for Bethany during their meeting, he said. “The last question, I apologized. I went on with that and he finally said I’m sorry – he just used my words to say ‘kidnap and hurt your father,’ “he said. “Did he mean that?” No.” Bethany, who said before meeting Kotey that she would not shake his hand but wanted to remain “cool and calm”, expected her to be “assertive” to get any answers. However, he described the seat as an “honest discussion”. “We have an honest, friendly conversation” “I expect to go there passively aggressively and I have to be assertive, to answer my questions,” he said. “And he smiles, chats, tells me things and we have an honest, friendly conversation. “I went in, said hello to his lawyer and just sat down and said, ‘I’m not going to say it’s nice to meet you because it’s not.’ He just nodded in agreement. “ Kotey was convicted of eight counts – four counts of kidnapping leading to his death. conspiracy to commit hostage-taking resulting in death; conspiracy to assassinate United States citizens outside the United States; terrorist organization resulting in death He was sentenced to life in prison for each of the eight charges for which he pleaded guilty, which are to be executed simultaneously.
