U.S.
female hostage raped by Islamic State leader before death: U.S.
officials
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[August 15, 2015]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Kayla
Mueller, the U.S. aid worker killed this year while being held hostage
by Islamic State militants, was raped repeatedly by the group's leader,
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, while in captivity in Syria, U.S. officials said
on Friday.
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Her parents, Carl and Marsha Mueller, were told by U.S. government
officials that their daughter had been raped by al-Baghdadi and
tortured during her captivity, family spokeswoman Emily Lenzner told
Reuters by telephone. Mueller was 26 at the time of her death and
would have turned 27 on Friday.
"We can confirm that the Mueller family learned in June of Kayla's
treatment from the FBI," Lenzner said.
ABC News first reported al-Baghdadi's sexual abuse of Mueller, and
U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the
report. ABC News quoted Mueller's parents as saying they were told
by the U.S. government their daughter "was the property of
al-Baghdadi."
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Islamic State said in February that Mueller, of Prescott, Arizona,
was killed when Jordanian fighter jets bombed a building where she
was being held outside Raqqa, a stronghold in Syria of the Islamist
militant group. Jordanian and U.S. officials have expressed doubt
about Islamic State's account of her death following 18 months as a
hostage.
Mueller was seized in August 2013 while leaving a hospital in Aleppo
in northern Syria.
Al-Baghdadi personally brought Mueller to be imprisoned inside the
home in Syria of Abu Sayyaf, a Tunisian Islamic State figure killed
in a U.S. raid in May, U.S. counter-terrorism officials told ABC
News.
The information about al-Baghdadi's actions came from many sources
including U.S. interviews with at least two teenage Yezidi girls
held as sex slaves in Sayyaf's compound and the interrogation of
Sayyaf's wife, Umm Sayyaf, who was captured by U.S. forces in the
raid in which her husband was killed, the officials told ABC News.
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Mueller went to Turkey in December 2012 to work for a Turkish
organization providing humanitarian aid to Syrian refugees along the
Syrian border.
Islamic State has beheaded numerous hostages, including three
Americans. Its forces control wide swathes of territory in Iraq and
Syria.
Lenzner said Mueller's parents were told at a meeting in Washington
of Mueller's abuse by al-Baghdadi and her torture while held
captive. Lenzner was not clear about whether al-Baghdadi was
responsible for torturing Mueller.
Mueller's family declined to comment directly on Friday.
"The family is so exhausted at this point, they need some time,"
Lenzner said.
(Reporting by Mark Hosenball and Will Dunham in Washington and David
Schwartz in Phoenix; Editing by Sandra Maler and Ken Wills)
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