The UK will not block use of the death penalty by the US in the case of two men who are accused of being Islamic State members, the home secretary says.

In a letter to the US attorney general, leaked to the Telegraph, Sajid Javid said the UK will seek no assurances that the pair will not be executed.

Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh were captured in Syria in January. But if the Londoners go to Guantanamo Bay the UK will withhold intelligence, the BBC’s Frank Gardner said.

Shami Chakrabarti, Labour’s shadow attorney general, said Mr Javid had “secretly and unilaterally abandoned Britain’s opposition to the death penalty” and appeared to be encouraging “this grave human rights abuse”.

The men are accused of being the last two members of an IS foursome dubbed “The Beatles”.

Earlier this year, in an interview with Associated Press, they complained that they would not get a fair trial because the UK government had stripped them of their British citizenship. The BBC’s security correspondent Frank Gardner added that the UK continued to call for the closure of the controversial US military prison Guantanamo Bay – where suspects have been detained without trial – and wants it closed.

In the letter to Jeff Sessions, dated 22 June 2018, Mr Javid wrote that the UK would not seek “assurances” over the death penalty in this particular case, but said it did not mark a change in UK policy. “I am of the view that there are strong reasons for not requiring a death penalty assurance in this specific case, so no such assurances will be sought,” he said. But the former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Lord Carlile, described the letter as “extraordinary”. “We do not extradite people to countries where there is a death penalty unless there is an assurance the death penalty will not be carried out,” he said. “This a unilateral change of policy without any consultation and I would be amazed if this had been approved explicitly by the prime minister.”

Diane Foley – whose son James, an American journalist, was beheaded by the IS cell in Syria in 2014 – told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that she was “very against” the death penalty for the pair. “I think that will just make them martyrs in their twisted ideology,” she said. “I would like them held accountable sending them to prison for the rest of their lives – that would be my preference for sure.” And Amnesty International called Mr Javid’s decision a “deeply worrying development”.

Kotey and Elsheikh were members of the IS cell with two others from west London – Mohammed Emwazi, nicknamed “Jihadi John”, and Aine Davis. The group were radicalised in the UK before travelling to Syria, where they became infamous for their executions of Western hostages.

Emwazi, who was the alleged ringleader and appeared in videos showing hostages being beheaded, was killed by a drone strike in 2015. Davis was convicted of being a senior IS member and was jailed in Turkey last year. Kotey and Elsheikh were captured by members of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in January.