Where is Alexanda Kotey now? ISIS 'Beatle' serving life for killing US hostages vanishes from prison
CANAAN, PENNSYLVANIA: ISIS "Beatle" Alexanda Kotey, who was serving a life sentence for brutal murder and torture of American hostages, has escaped from the US prison system. Federal Bureau of Prisons records show that the 39-year-old is no longer incarcerated at the maximum-security Canaan Prison in Pennsylvania. Last year, the London native was imprisoned in America after pleading guilty in 2021 to eight charges related to the kidnapping, torture and beheading of Islamic State hostages in Syria.
Kotey's sudden disappearance has now caused fear and confusion among family members of his victims, including the daughter of a British aid worker he killed. Kotey, also known as "Jihadi George," was sent to Canaan in August after admitting to eight charges related to the kidnapping, torture and execution of hostages in Syria between 2012 and 2015.
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Kotey was a member of the "Beatles" terrorist group responsible for the murders and capture of more than two dozen Westerners nearly a decade ago after the Arab Spring erupted in Middle East Asia. The hostages called them "Beatles" because of their English accents. The sadistic individuals portrayed their extremism in their propaganda videos, in which victims were paraded in orange jumpsuits before being beheaded.
The group is believed to have kidnapped and killed 27 people. Four Americans and two Britons, including aid worker David Haines, were murdered. His daughter, 24-year-old Bethany Haines, told the Record yesterday she believed Kotey was still in US custody. "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 said. "I don't want to think that he has managed to negotiate his way into any kind of easy treatment on the basis of him assisting authorities or anything else." Last June, Haines met with Kotey face-to-face in Virginia where he told her how he had kidnapped her father and witnessed his execution.
Thursday's Daily Record front page: The daughter of Scots Isis victim David Haines has hit out after one of his abductors disappeared from the US prison system. #TomorrowsPapersToday #scotpapers pic.twitter.com/gLfVZjhlhO
— The Daily Record (@Daily_Record) January 11, 2023
Where is Alexanda Kotey now?
Kotey accepted a plea deal that included 'cooperation requirements' and avoided serving his sentence at the ADX Florence prison in Colorado, also known as the "Alcatraz of the Rockies". However, six months later he is listed as 'not in BOP custody' on the prison system's website. The present whereabouts of Kotey is not known. BOP spokesperson Donald Murphy confirmed to The Scottish Daily Record that "Alexanda Amon Kotey is not currently in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons."
According to Murphy, there could be various reasons why an inmate could be referenced as not in the system, but he did not reveal why Kotey received that designation. "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,", Murphy stated according to Daily Mail. He also noted that BOP does not provide specific details about an inmate due to his "safety, security, or privacy reasons."