ALEXANDRIA, Va.—When Federico Motka got on the witness stand to testify last week in the trial of Islamic State member El Shafee Elsheikh, he shared vivid memories about three prison guards who spoke with east London accents and dominated his 14 months as a hostage when the terrorist group controlled much of Syria.

One had a specific scent and would sometimes wrap a scarf around his head, said Mr. Motka, an aid worker from Italy. Another described stealing mopeds in London and could debate the differences between Islam and Christianity. He testified that he once saw the shadows of two of the guards’ faces through the cell hatch in the twilight hours.

Mr. Motka spoke so softly that jurors asked the court to remove the plastic barrier that was placed around the witness stand during the pandemic, so they could better understand him.

Prosecutors are trying to build the case that Mr. Elsheikh, who was born in Sudan in 1988 and grew up in London, was a member of that group of apparently British guards who oversaw the foreign hostages and were responsible for murdering four Americans among them. They are relying on the emotional testimony of several released hostages who interacted with the guards in intimate ways but never looked at them directly.

“Did you ever see their faces?” one prosecutor asked another former hostage, a nurse from Peru, Patricia Chavez, who replied, “No, they were covered with balaclavas.”

Ms. Chavez described how the British guards blamed one of the murdered hostages, aid worker Kayla Mueller, for “everything America has done” and yelled at her regularly. She said Ms. Mueller had told her that while in captivity she had been placed in a room resembling a dog kennel where she couldn’t stretch out, and in another covered in cockroaches.

Mr. Elsheikh, who faces charges of hostage-taking resulting in death and other counts, has looked on as the former prisoners have testified, dressed in blue dress shirts and slacks, often with one hand on his hip and the other stroking his beard under a black face mask. Former hostages and the families of the victims have packed the courtroom for days of testimony that began last week and is expected to continue through the middle of next week.

One former hostage approached Mr. Elsheikh during a break on Tuesday, telling him he would go to hell, prompting an admonition from the judge. “I seriously considered whether to exclude you,” U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis told the former hostage, adding that while he understood his anger, it was for the jury to decide whether Mr. Elsheikh had been one of the guards.

Another former hostage, Spanish journalist Marcos Marginedas, testified that the British guards were known to the foreign prisoners as the “Beatles.” He said they were particularly feared for their wanton cruelty, which included vicious beatings that often left hostages with broken ribs. Whenever they entered the prisoners’ quarters, Mr. Marginedas said, they demanded the hostages face the wall and kneel, punishing those who disobeyed. They “really understood how to inflict pain,” he said.

One of the guards became known publicly as “Jihadi John” in 2014 after ISIS released a gruesome video showing the guard executing American journalist James Foley, claiming it was a response to U.S. airstrikes on Islamic State fighters and blaming then-President Barack Obama.

Mr. Motka testified that he had been in Switzerland with his mother after his release when he saw the video of Mr. Foley’s beheading. He said he recognized the executioner by another name: the guard they had referred to as “George,” known to the hostages as the group’s leader. “When he says ‘Muslims,’ or ‘you, Obama,’ it’s quite distinctive,” Mr. Motka said.

Lawyers for Mr. Elsheikh have argued that while he traveled to Syria from London and joined ISIS, he wasn’t a member of the Beatles. In media interviews after he was captured in 2018, Mr. Elsheikh admitted to interacting with the hostages and described the killer in the video, Mohammed Emwazi, who was killed in a 2015 drone strike, as a loyal friend. His lawyers have said he lied in some of the interviews to avoid being sent to his death in Iraq.

The three guards were often together and behaved with each other as old friends, several of the hostages testified. Mr. Marginedas described how the two Beatles he knew as “John” and “Ringo” beat him as they tried to film him begging for his release, saying his demeanor wasn’t dramatic enough. Prosecutors argue that Ringo is Mr. Elsheikh. Many spoke of humiliations while held hostage, including being handcuffed to other prisoners for days, having to use a toilet together while suffering from diarrhea, getting little food and having parasites cover their bodies.

While a U.S.-backed coalition dislodged Islamic State from power in 2019, the jihadist group has transformed into an underground insurgency. It continues to be involved in extortion and smuggling operations, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

The trial has underscored the terrorist group’s cruelty. A former Syrian hostage, Mohammad Almahmoud, who had worked with another of the murdered Americans, Peter Kassig, testified Tuesday that he had been separated from Mr. Kassig and was fifth on a list of six men sentenced to death. He said he was asked if he preferred to be shot or beheaded.

As Mr. Almahmoud described how the first four men were called and never came back, he broke down in tears, prompting a break in the trial. He was ultimately released, Mr. Almahmoud later continued.

“They said, ‘OK, we will forgive you this time,’” he said, adding that he thought he was released to deliver the message that Mr. Kassig had been taken, with Islamic State intending to extract hefty payments as ransom for the release of the Western hostages.

Some of the testimony suggested that Mr. Elsheikh was the guard known to the hostages as Ringo. Mr. Motka, the Italian aid worker, for example, recalled a conversation with him about how the guard had once got into a fight outside a London pub with a far-right group, the English Defense League, mirroring an established episode from Mr. Elsheikh’s past.

But the guards often took care to avoid giving the hostages information that might help identify them, the former prisoners testified. When the group discovered letters Mr. Motka had been trying to smuggle out as he left captivity, they threw the notes to him and demanded he read them out loud, to avoid putting their own fingerprints on them, Mr. Motka said.

After hearing about how the prisoners referred to the Beatles, the guards asked Mr. Motka who each of the Beatles were. “I told them who I thought was who,” Mr. Motka said. “They thought it was amusing.”

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