Islamic State leader raped Kayla Mueller before death in captivity, officials say

The parents of the late American hostage Kayla Mueller say they were told by American officials that their daughter was repeatedly forced to have sex with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State group.


A US official confirmed the account of family spokeswoman Emily Lenzner. It was first reported by London’s Independent newspaper. The official was not authorized to be quoted by name.

Mueller was held for a time by Islamic State financier Abu Sayyaf and his wife, Umm Sayyaf. Baghdadi took Mueller as a “wife”, and repeatedly forced her to have sex with him when he visited, her parents Carl and Marsha Mueller were told.

American officials, the Independent wrote, learned the information from a Yazidi teenager who had been held with Mueller, whose death in captivity was announced in February.

Though the group said Mueller died in a Jordanian air raid made in retaliation for Islamic State’s gruesome killing of a Jordanian pilot, US officials and others have challenged that version, saying there was no indication how or when she died.

Her family said it suspects that Mueller might have been murdered by Isis in retaliation for Jordan’s killing of its prisoner Sajida Rishawi, a prisoner who had participated in the 2005 hotel suicide bombings in Amman.

The White House and State Department declined to comment.

The Associated Press contributed to this report