January 1, Former ISIS Hostage Describes ‘Regime of Punishment’

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY…
1968: US civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated by James Earl Ray at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee.

A former ISIS hostage gave a harrowing testimony, in which he described a brutal “regime of punishment” his captors forced him to endure.

Federico Motka, an Italian aid worker, was held by ISIS executioners nicknamed “The Beatles.” His testimony came as part of the terrorism trial of El Shafee Elsheikh, a British national accused of leading the kidnapping scheme that claimed more than 20 Western hostages between 2012 and 2015.

The aid worker told the court how his captors — nicknamed John, George, and Ringo because of their British accents — forced him and other hostages into a room at “the box” and made them fight in a “Royal Rumble”-esque melee.

“They were super excited about it,” Motka said. “We were so weak and shattered we could barely lift our arms.”

Four Americans were among the hostages: journalists James Foley and Steven Soloff, and aid workers Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller. All four were brutally murdered by their captors.

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Hostage survivor testifies in trial of ISIS member accused in deaths of several Americans