Officials for the UK government, which had been objecting to the death penalty in the case of the extradition of two British Islamic State (IS) fighters who killed Americans in Syria, dropped its case, allowing the pair to be extradited to the US and face American courts.

El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey were two British nationals who allegedly tortured and murdered more than two dozen hostages, including journalist James Foley, an American journalist who was executed in 2014. The Guardian reported that the UK had formerly refused to cooperate with the US because one of the fighter’s mothers sent an appeal objecting to the death penalty, but has since cooperated due to pressure from the Trump administration.

The UK also objected to the death penalty on the grounds of the Human Rights Act of 1998, which states that “No [British] citizen shall be subject to the death penalty or executed.” To help extradite Elsheikh and Kotey, the UK stripped them of their British citizenship and has cooperated with the US Department of Justice (DOJ). The DOJ supports the measure, especially considering its August 2018 Memo on Extradition Law, which allowed for the extradition of other nations’ citizens in cases of terrorism.

In 2003 the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, working with the UK government, approved a treaty legalizing the extradition of UK citizens to the US to face trial “whether or not the laws in the Requesting and Requested States place the offense within the same category of offenses,” meaning that sentencing can come under US law even if the UK abolished the death penalty.

Elsheikh and Kotey are presently held in US custody in northern Syria, and they are now eligible to receive the death penalty in US court.