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Alexandria (United States) (AFP) – A younger Yazidi girl testified on Monday that American help employee Kayla Mueller advised her she was raped by former Islamic State chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and threatened with loss of life if she tried to flee.
Lia Mulla, who was captured by Islamic State (IS) members in August 2014 as she tried to flee Iraq’s Mount Sinjar together with her household, testified via a translator on Monday on the trial of El Shafee Elsheikh, who was allegedly certainly one of Mueller’s IS jailers.
Elsheikh, a 33-year-old former British nationwide, is accused of being a member of the infamous IS kidnap-and-murder cell often known as the “Beatles.”
He’s charged with the murders of 4 Individuals: Mueller, freelance journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and Peter Kassig, one other aid employee.
Mueller, an help employee from Arizona, was captured by IS in August 2013 whereas accompanying her Syrian boyfriend on a visit to a hospital in Aleppo, the place he was contracted to restore a satellite tv for pc dish.
She was initially held by the “Beatles” however then was allegedly turned over to Baghdadi, the IS chief who died throughout a US particular forces raid in 2019.
Mulla stated she was taken by IS to varied areas with different younger ladies after being captured.
Ultimately, she ended up in a jail the place Mueller was being detained.
They communicated “principally with their fingers,” she stated, and some phrases of Arabic.
“At some point they took her and once they introduced her again she was actually afraid,” Mulla stated. “That they had advised her that IS wished to marry us off, and if we had been to attempt to run away they might kill us.”
A few days later, Mulla stated she was taken together with Mueller and one other Yazidi woman to the house of Abu Sayyaf, a high Baghdadi lieutenant, the place they might “deal with us like slaves.”
‘Soiled home’
After per week there, she stated they had been taken to the “soiled home… the place had been they took younger women and raped them.”
She stated Baghdadi got here one night time and took Mueller away.
When Mueller returned the following morning, “she was very unhappy, she was very nervous, she was crying,” Mulla stated. “She had been raped and threatened that if she tried to run away he would kill her.”
Mulla stated she determined to attempt to escape and requested Mueller to hitch her however she declined. “She was afraid that if she was captured, she can be beheaded,” she stated.
However Mueller requested Mulla to “inform the world” about her if she managed to make it to freedom.
Mulla stated she slipped out a window, climbed on a generator to recover from a wall and ran for a very long time.
After her escape, she stated her brother put her in contact with a buddy who was a translator for the Individuals and she or he advised them about Mueller.
IS introduced Mueller’s loss of life in February 2015 and stated she was killed in a Jordanian airstrike, a declare that was disputed by US authorities.
Foley, Sotloff and Kassig had been murdered by IS and movies of their deaths launched by the group for propaganda functions.
Elsheikh and one other “Beatle,” Alexanda Amon Kotey, had been captured in January 2018 by a Kurdish militia in Syria and turned over to US forces in Iraq.
They had been flown to Virginia in 2020 to face expenses of hostage-taking, conspiracy to homicide US residents and supporting a terrorist group.
Kotey pleaded responsible in September 2021 and is going through life in jail.
“Beatles” executioner Mohamed Emwazi was killed by a US drone in Syria in 2015.
Prosecutors are anticipated to wrap up their case towards Elsheikh on Tuesday.
Elsheikh has denied the fees and his attorneys declare his arrest is a case of mistaken id.
© 2022 AFP
