Three men who lured an Israeli musician and record producer into an isolated Welsh cottage were sentenced to eight years in prison after a botched kidnapping attempt in August last year in the United Kingdom.

The Swansea Crown Court in Wales heard the bizarre and disturbing details surrounding the plan to kidnap Israeli musician and record producer Itay Kashti last August 2024. The court heard that the three kidnappers, 22-year-old Faiz Shah, 22-year-old Mohammad Comrie, and 20-year-old Elijah Ogunnubi-Sime, abducted Kashti for political and religious reasons.

The court also heard during the sentencing hearing in March that they were also motivated by money, believing they could make a million-pound ransom once they kidnapped Kashti. The three suspects pleaded guilty to the kidnapping charges pressed against them, and they received a custodial sentence of eight years and one month. Comrie and Shah will both be imprisoned, while Ogunnubi-Sime was sent to a young offender’s institution.

On August 14 last year, the 45-year-old Israeli musician and record producer, who immigrated to the UK from Israel in 2007, was emailed by someone claiming to be Lucas Winslow of Polydor Records, inviting Kashti to a "music recording camp" in rural Wales. This was the beginning of the three men’s scheme to kidnap Kashti to extort money from him.

The three also rented a gatehouse for a week using a stolen identity, and a taxi was booked on August 26th to collect Kashti from his home in London to bring him to the property. Both the taxi operator and the driver, Mohammad Amowar, were "innocent parties and as much duped as the complainant.”

Kashti and Amowar realized they had walked into a "well-laid trap” when they arrived at the property, and the two were immediately attacked. Kashti was assaulted by the three, who wore "anonymous-style" masks, while Amowar was hit in the face but was able to escape through the front door.

The three punched and kicked Kashti, who suffered severe injuries to his face and head, and handcuffed him to a radiator pipe inside the property, where he was threatened that he "would be killed" if he tried to escape.

“They said they were going to kill me, and they chained me, handcuffed me to a pipe that came out of the radiator. I was bleeding, shocked,“ Kashti recalled during an interview with The Guardian.

But Kashti heard silence after he was handcuffed. He later found out the three kidnappers panicked and fled. He managed to free himself by lifting his hands "up and off the pipe" and ran out of the property. He took his guitar and called his wife and the police to report what happened.

Kashti suffered from swollen and bruised eyelids, a swollen nose, and bruising to his back, knees, and leg, as well as a cut to the scalp.

“The left eye was completely swollen. It was closed,“ he recalled.

During the trial, Judge Catherine Richards, who sentenced the three men, said Kashti “was targeted due to his Jewish heritage," adding the kidnappers were “motivated by events taking place elsewhere in the world," possibly referring to the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

"He was an entirely innocent, hard-working music producer that you had identified as a victim based on your understanding of his wealth and his Jewish heritage," the judge also said.

Kashti said that while doctors helped him tremendously during his physical rehabilitation, his emotional recovery has taken much longer. However, he also noted that he was not angry with those who attacked him, hoping that their imprisonment “will turn them into better people,“ adding, “If they do turn into better people, then it was worth locking them up.“