US hostage Kayla Mueller was repeatedly forced to have sex with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State (IS) group, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, US intelligence officials told her family in June.
The news is the latest in a litany of horrors perpetrated by the Islamic State group, which has beheaded, burned and crucified male captives, while passing around women as sex slaves.
Mueller was held for a time by Islamic State financier Abu Sayyaf and his wife, Umm Sayyaf. Al-Baghdadi took Mueller as a “wife,” repeatedly raping her when he visited, according to a Yazidi teenager who was held with Mueller and escaped in October last year.
Photo: AP
The 14-year-old made her way to Iraqi Kurdistan, where she talked to US commandos in November last year. Intelligence agencies corroborated her account and US officials passed it on to her parents in June.
“They told us that he married her, and we all understand what that means,” Carl Mueller, Kayla’s father, said on Friday, which would have been his daughter’s 27th birthday.
Her death was reported in February.
Kayla Mueller’s mother, Marsha Mueller, said: “Kayla did not marry this man,” adding that “he took her to his room and he abused her and she came back crying.”
Umm Sayyaf confirmed that al-Baghdadi had “owned” Kayla during Umm Sayyaf’s lengthy US interrogation in Iraq, the Muellers said they were told by US officials.
A US official confirmed their account, first reported by London’s Independent newspaper. The official was not authorized to be quoted by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Abu Sayyaf was killed in a US Delta Force raid of his Syrian compound in June, which resulted in a treasure trove of intelligence about the Islamic State group. Umm Sayyaf has been turned over to the Iraqi Kurds for trial.
The Muellers have been told she can be expected to serve a long prison sentence, family spokeswoman, Emily Lenzner said.
The Islamic State group said Kayla Mueller was killed in a Jordanian airstrike near Raqqah, the group’s self-declared capital in Syria. US officials confirmed the death, but not the circumstances.
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