US Charges Widow Of ISIS Leader In Death Of American Kayla Mueller

The wife of a dead ISIS leader has been charged with having a “role in a conspiracy that resulted in the death of American citizen Kayla Mueller in February 2015”, Justice Department documents say.

The Justice Department on Monday announced charges against 25-year-old Nisreen Assad Ibrahim Bahar, who’s also known as Umm Sayyaf.

“While Mueller, Individual #2, and Individual #3 were held captive by the Sayyaf’s, Umm Sayyaf threatened the women, telling them she would kill them if they did not listen to her”, according to an affidavit.

The department firmly believes that Sayyaf will be held to account for her crimes, “though we can not guarantee any particular result”, Raimondi added. Then FBI agents from the Washington Field Office, known as a clean team, interviewed her repeatedly, working to build a criminal case against her for a future prosecution in federal court. “We will continue to pursue justice for Kayla and for all American victims of terrorism”. Along with other captives, she was at times handcuffed and kept in locked rooms, the affidavit states, and called an “infidel” by Umm Sayyaf. USA officials have refuted that claim but haven’t offered any alternative explanation of how Mueller died.

Monday’s charges in a Virgina court “reflect that the USA justice system remains a powerful tool to bring to bear against those who harm our citizens overseas”, he said in the statement.

Mueller, from Prescott, Arizona, was taken hostage with her boyfriend, Omar Alkhani, in August 2013 after leaving a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Aleppo, Syria, where he had been hired to fix the Internet service for the hospital. Her home was used to store money ISIS made from oil and firearms, and sometimes ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi stayed there.

The Justice Department complaint echoes earlier assertions from US intelligence officials, who had told Mueller’s family that their daughter was repeatedly forced to have sex with al-Baghdadi.

In January 2015, two counter-terrorism officials told ABC News that a credible sighting of Mueller had come to the attention of the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command the previous October. All evidence is to the contrary, according to her family and many US officials and private hostage negotiators familiar with details of her case.

Abu Sayyaf was killed in a Delta Force raid of his Syrian compound in June, and his wife was turned over to Iraqi authorities for prosecution.

Sayyaf faces a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted.

Umm Sayyaf allegedly confessed that she had sole responsibility for Mueller and others while her husband traveled, according to the affidavit, in which she also admitted that Baghdadi “owned” Mueller during her captivity, with “owning” being equivalent to slavery.