Hello. A major trial will take place this year in the us. Youll remember the story behind it. El Shafee Elsheikh is accused of being a member of the Islamic State group and of being one of the notorious is beatles. So named by their hostages because of their british accents and accused of torturing and beheading journalists and aid workers. Itv newss Rohit Kachroo secured interviews with el Shafee Elsheikh and another man before they were transferred into us custody. Those interviews are to form part of the trial. So, what are the ethics of interviewing suspected members of a terror group . Is it ever 0k to give what amounts to be publicity to people accused of such serious crimes . And how you even go about doing it . Welcome to the media show, and lets start right at beginning of the story. Who were the is beatles and when did you first come across them . Well, everyone will remember years ago 2014, 2015 the rise, the rapid rise of Islamic State group, isis. And the fact that they started this process of taking western hostages. But then not only were we hearing the news about it, but we were seeing video of it. This group was filming the executions by beheading, and they were posting these in Stylised Propaganda videos online. It became clear that there was a group here of four british men who some of the hostages referred to as the beatles because there were four of them, because of their british accents. And what we knew was that one of the figures, who turned out to be a leading figure, was this man he would been mysteriously referred to as � jihadijohn, but people didnt who he was. We knew that the authorities in the uk and the us had a fairly good idea who he was. We, like many organisations, set out to try to identify them and actually the first scoop went to the Washington Post, which reported around the same time as lucy manning at the bbc the name ofjihadijohn as mohammed emwazi. You did make it your mission to identify some of the others. How did you do it . Who did you identify . How did you track them down . Piecing together rumours that different people had heard. Here in london, but also out in syria. Things that were being said in the corridors in whitehall and these names kept recurring. Alexanda kotey, el Shafee Elsheikh. We talked at length to some of the hostages who were released. We tried to find pictures to show them. At one point, we found an old Dating Website Profile for Alexanda Kotey. There were a lot ofjournalists looking at this, and it was a really difficult process. This may be a ridiculous question based on what was going on in the country and how dangerous it was, but once you identified them, were you trying to make contact with them . Is it possible to make contact with someone from is . Do they have a press office . Can they put someone up for interview . I know its highly unlikely. There is no press office for Islamic State group. There were routes into the group. You know, for example, many people who left their own homes, who left their own countries to go out there were in contact with their families back home. What became clear pretty early on was that these men werent just sort of roaming around the shops, you know, they werent just strolling around the street in raqqa saying hello to people in the cafe. These were protected people, so protected, they were conscious of their digital footprint, they were conscious of their location. Because remember, you know, the uk government wanted to track them down. And actuallyjihadi john, mohammed emwazi, was eventually killed by a drone strike, and they knew that they were wanted men. So, we had no direct contact with them. The next thing that happened was that, mysteriously, suddenly they turned up in a kurdish prison. Just before we get into the detail of how you then met two of them, just lets talk about the victims and their families. You know, just remind us who were the victims. These were largely aid workers and journalists. They were people who had gone out to syria to do good things. In the case of people like james foley, the american journalist, he went out there to tell the stories of suffering in syria. And also aid workers, people like david haines from perth in scotland, who had gone out to syria to help people. They all left behind these families, including here in the uk and several in the us as well. And families you made contact with. Why did you do that . I mean, i can see obviously it adds a human element, but i think there are also risks involved. Do you worry about re traumatising people, about asking families to live, relive what must have been the worst experiences of their lives . Yeah, we asked ourselves and have asked ourselves over the last five, six years almost every possible ethical question in journalism. The first Family Member who we had regular contact with was the daughter of david haines, Bethany Haines, who was incredibly young at the time. She was at school. She was a teenager when her father was taken hostage. And actually, some of those early contacts came, you know, on a very basic level because we were seeking comment on events that were happening, including, for example, the moment thatjihadijohn, mohammed emwazi, was killed by a drone strike. We wanted to know what people thought, what people who were directly affected thought. You know, that was a sort of legitimate journalistic exercise. But over the years, i think weve become closer to many of them. Lets get into a bit more of the detail about the interviews that you then got. I think you had several. Can you just quickly sum up who you spoke to and when . So, we interviewed el Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey. These were the two members of the so called is beatles who were then later transferred to the United States. You know, getting interviews with these people was not easy. Word came back early on, im not sure if this is true, that kotey didnt want to give an interview to itv news. And the suggestion was that because of our role in putting his name out there in the first place, he had particular reticence in terms of speaking to us. What changed his mind . Did you hear . Well, im not sure. We went to north east syria seeking to do other stories. So when you went out there, you didnt know you were getting interview with him . No, we did not. No, we went out there with Bethany Haines, the daughter of david haines, the murdered aid worker, and the reason we were there was because we wanted to follow her journey. She had this invitation from the kurdish authorities to go and to see some of the locations that were significant in her fathers story. Because although his Execution Site has never been officially located, one estimate says it was near here. She has studied the landscape in his Execution Video so many times before, and finally shes now here. She cant be certain, but this does look familiar. It would definitely be the hills with the tracks because thats really evident in the video that theres a track going down behind him. It makes you just want to go off and try and find him, which is something that i cant do. But to know its somewhere out there, it does provide a bit of comfort. We were there, we got essentially a tap on the shoulder by the kurdish authorities. We were given the opportunity to meet elsheikh and kotey. And what did they without going into too much detail, what did they say to you in those interviews . Well, i went in with the specific aim of asking questions on behalf of bethany. They had done interviews with cnn, with aptn and with the Washington Post about their journey, about their story. You know, we were mindful of the fact that we had perhaps only 15 minutes to talk to them. And at that point, they were very clear that they were innocent, right . Because i understand that since, Alexanda Kotey has changed his plea. Yeah, well, innocent. Sort of innocent with caveats, i think you might say. They admitted in that conversation that they had. What they termed as a peripheral role, that they were, you know, elsheikh said he was driving the van, so i asked specific questions about david haines. What sort of answers are you able to offer bethany . I cant answer specific questions. I can only offer answers to things which i witnessed. As for the execution and the remains, i im afraid i cant offer any. Answers to those questions cause i dont have i any knowledge of it. He said his role was to take hostages from place to place. Did you move david haines from place to place . I moved a bunch of prisoners. What about david haines . He could have been amongst them. You dont remember . When youre driving a van, you dont do a headcount. | its not yourjob. Yourjob is to drive a van. So you would drive a van which included some of the hostages . Yeah. And where were you driving from and to . Wherever they told me. For both of them, they became quite confrontational. Alexanda kotey particularly. I already had made. Forget what you said before. Im asking you will you apologise to Bethany Haines . I wont forget everything ive said before because ijust find it. Will you apologise to Bethany Haines . I find your line of questioning irritating will you apologise to her . Apologise. To Bethany Haines . I think ive already said that. No, you havent. No, maybe it didnt get broadcast maybe. Alexanda kotey said that we were doing this interview purely for entertainment and he didnt want to give itv the opportunity to have an entertainment show, which felt like an unusual admission, because actually before those conversations took place, you know, i had a Pre Conversation where i looked each of them in the eye and i said, do you want to do this interview . You know, we hadnt gone to north east syria with the idea of doing a conversation with these people. You know, if they turned around and said, no, we dont want to do this, we were more than prepared to get up and walk out the room. And coming in, you know, we had a Whatsapp Group with our editor here, our head of newsgathering, our head of foreign news, were updating them on every single thing that happened, but you know, at no point to any of the people say, listen, brother, youve got to get the interview. But who did sign off on . Bbc, other institutions have very strict rules on this about interview of criminals . Absolutely, yeah. And actually, you know, i was always mindful of the fact that whatever happened in that room could subsequently be used in a court of law, that this may well be scrutinised by a jury at some point in the future. So, how high up did the Sign Off Have to be . At what level did it go . Did it go up to, i dont know, the likes of deborah whos soon to come to the bbc, but is now head of itn, deborah turness. Yeah, this was signed off by the editor, it was signed off by senior managers at itv as well. And part of the conversation around that was what happened in the room . For example, there were Armed Kurdish Guards inside that room. Its a prison. Perhaps thats not surprising. But one of the things me and the producer and the cameraman turned � round and said to the kurdish supervisor was they cant be in here. You know, im not going to do an interview with an armed man from a Militia Group standing behind me almost guarding this conversation. And explain to audiences why youre worried about that. You know, we didnt want to have conversations with people that were leading news at ten and we are making a big splash of with people who had been mistreated or people who we knew had been forced to give the interviews that they gave. The answers that they gave to us in our conversations. There were four of us from itv news. There was a senior producer, a middle east producer, who has covered Conflict Zones and the sorts of interviews quite a lot. We had a senior cameraman, markjervis, who covers violence in belfast, and we had our well plugged in local producer, what some people call the local � fixer�. When we were all in this room and we had the conversation and we made the call there and then on the ground. 0ur Internet Connection was slipping away, you know, we didnt have the opportunity at that last moment to just get a doublecheck from the editor. But i think they trusted us to make the right decision and im really confident that we did make the right decision. And i know now in the trial of elsheikh that that issue of those Media Interviews and the ethics around some of those conversations will play quite differently. Yeah, and well talk about the trial in a moment. Just to summarise, if you wouldnt mind, what you think came out of your specific interviews with those two men . What did they say . Well, Alexanda Kotey admitted for the first time in one of our interviews that he played some sort of role. In previous conversations, he pretty much that i had nothing to do with this. But in that first interview that we did in 2019, he said, yeah, you know, i was peripherally involved, as he termed it, but he actually admitted that he was sending proof of life e mails, e mails which ive read now from the other side, from the families of the victims, he was sending proof of life e mails to families particularly in United States demanding ransoms from the family of one of the hostages. He was in touch with herfamily. Her elderly parents in arizona, demanding that they pay or that they raise millions and millions of euros to pay a ransom in order to secure the release of their daughter. So, he admitted for the first time publicly that in our first interview. And he has since pleaded guilty, hasnt he . He has since pleaded guilty and admitted all charges in the United States. Our final conversation with el Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey had a slightly different aim. We were there with the story of one person in mind, the family of david haines. And we thought that it would be a legitimate and an important Editorial Exercise to try to seek from him the truth. If he had it, if either of these men had it about what happened to this british hostage who was killed on camera. And, you know, he admitted to some things, but he still said, listen, i dont know the details. Its now turned out that in his interviews with us interrogators, which happened around the same time, its now been revealed in court that in fact he did give specific details about the death of david haines. And so that was the importance of the interviews. For Alexanda Kotey, he sort of shouted at me and said, i dont like your line of questioning, and he said, youre just here to create entertainment. You know. Were you . No, no, we really werent. And actually, you know, its a typical difficult line to tread because you know that these conversations necessarily have to be, at the very least, slightly confrontational. What would you say to her about whats happened to herfather . Ive already said what i had to say, i havent got anything else to add. What would you say to Bethany Haines about what happened her father . Ive already said what i have to say. She wants to know where the remains of her father are. Im the wrong person to ask. If i had information about that, then we wouldnt be sitting here having this discussion, so. And we knew, we knew through all of this that at some point the police would want that material. Which is a difficult ethical journalistic question. Because they have, you know, increased powers under the Terrorism Act to seek material that they feel can help a terrorist investigation. And, look, weve been here before. Weve gone to court to not hand over the rushes, the un broadcast material of an interview that i did with Shamima Begum because we didnt feel that the line had been crossed. Ok, but you are. Sorry to interrupt, but you are in the business of making television, so just tell me how you turned it into television. Where were you putting it out . Was it news at ten, was it trailed . What we ended up doing was running a three part series which led news at ten. 0n the first night, we ran for eight minutes, which is fairly almost unprecedented in itv news terms and news bulletin terms. We ran an eight minute film which charted herjourney to syria, which talked about her feelings about going there. You know. Including the interviews or not . No, it did not. We held that for the following night. And then we trailed that at the end of our story on news at ten that night. And then the following nights, we returned on news at ten with our conversation of the back of our story with bethany, which naturally followed on. And, look, it was. It was gripping television, people said, but. And also a great business presumably for itv, which is a commercial entity, after all. I cant say we made a penny out of it. I guess its good for us in terms of our. Were here to tell stories and were here to tell them well and were here to tell stories bbc arent telling and channel 4 news are not telling or sky arent telling. You know, theres no money to be made on an assignment like that. In fact, these things are expensive. There is only a lot of money to be lost. You touched earlier on the ethics, but clearly there were some major ethical questions. Is it ethical to interview a member of is at all . Are you humanising or potentially whitewashing what they did . What do you think about that . One of the things that changed the dynamic was that by this point, by early autumn of 2019, we had passed the territorial defeat of is. They no longer had a so called caliphate. T