An Yazidi woman testified in a U.S. court that American aid worker Kayla Mueller told her she was raped by the former ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and was threatened with death if she attempted to escape. Leila Mulla, who was captured by the terrorist organization's members in August 2014 while trying to flee Mount Sinjar in Iraq with her family, testified through a translator on Monday in the trial of El Shafee Elsheikh, who is believed to have been one of Mueller's captors.
Various European journalists and former hostages in Syria have testified in recent days as part of the trial of Elsheikh, a member of the ISIS cell known as "the Beatles" due to its members' British accents. Elsheikh is charged with the murders of four Americans: Mueller, independent journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and another aid worker, Peter Kassig.
The extremist organization captured aid worker Mueller from Arizona in August 2013 while she was accompanying her Syrian friend on a visit to a hospital in Aleppo, where he was called to fix a satellite dish. Initially held by the "Beatles" cell, she is believed to have later been handed over to al-Baghdadi, who was killed in a 2019 U.S. special forces operation.
Mulla stated in her testimony that she was moved to several locations with other young women who had been kidnapped and ended up in a prison where Kayla Mueller was held. She explained that they communicated mostly through "hand signals" and some words in Arabic. The court heard that "one day they took Mueller, and when they returned her, she was very scared," adding, "They told her that ISIS wanted to marry us, and if we tried to escape, they would kill us."
Two days later, she was taken with Mueller and another Yazidi woman to the house of Abu Sayyaf, a senior leader in the organization, where "they treated us like slaves," according to Mulla. A week later, she said they were transferred to "the dirty house... the place where they take young women and rape them." Al-Baghdadi came one night and took Mueller with him, Mulla reported.
Continuing, she noted that when Mueller returned the next morning, "she was very sad, very tense, and was crying," adding, "She was raped and was threatened that if she tried to escape, they would kill her." Mulla decided to try to escape and asked Mueller to join her, but she refused, saying, "She was afraid that if she was caught, they would behead her." However, Mueller asked Mulla to "tell the world" her story if she managed to escape.
Mulla stated that she snuck out through a window, climbed a generator to scale a wall, and then ran for a long time. After her escape, her brother helped her contact a friend who worked as a translator for the Americans and informed them about Mueller.
ISIS announced Mueller's death in February 2015, claiming she died in a Jordanian airstrike, a claim that U.S. authorities doubted. Foley, Sotloff, and Kassig were killed by the extremist group, which released shocking videos of their executions for propaganda purposes.
Kurdish forces in Syria captured Elsheikh and another British national, Alexanda Amon Kotey, 37, in January 2018 while they were attempting to flee to Turkey. In October 2020, they were handed over to U.S. forces in Iraq and then moved to Virginia, where they were charged with hostage-taking, conspiracy to murder American citizens, and support for a foreign terrorist organization. Kotey, nicknamed "Ringo," pleaded guilty in September 2021 and agreed to a deal with the court that would see him spend 15 years in a U.S. prison before being handed over to Britain for trial there.
Cell member Mohammed Emwazi was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Syria in November 2015, while the fourth member, Aine Davis, is serving a sentence in Turkey after being convicted on terrorism charges. Elsheikh denies the charges, and his lawyers point to inconsistencies in his identity at the time of his capture. He faces a life sentence if convicted.
