Brother of Jordan pilot burnt to death tells court of family's pain
The brutal killing took place sometime in late 2014 or early 2015 and sparked outrage internationally and in Jordan.
Osama Krayem, a 32-year-old Swede already serving long prison sentences for his role in the Paris and Brussels attacks in 2015 and 2016, is on trial in Stockholm, suspected of war crimes and terrorist crimes for the pilot's killing.
On Dec. 24, 2014, an aircraft belonging to the Royal Jordanian Air Force crashed in Syria.
The pilot, Maaz Al-Kassasbeh, was captured the same day by Daesh near the central city of Raqqa and was burned alive in a cage sometime before
Feb. 3, 2015, when a video of the gruesome killing was published, according to the prosecution.
On Wednesday, Jawdat Al-Kassasbeh, the brother of the pilot and a plaintiff in the case, told the Stockholm district court of the physical and psychological trauma the family has suffered since the killing.
Defendant Krayem refused to answer questions from the prosecution on Wednesday.
'Can you say something about your current situation? Are you a practicing Muslim? Can you say something about your view of Daesh?' the prosecutor asked.
'Does the fact that you are no longer answering questions have anything to do with you feeling that you were mistreated during the Swedish investigation?' Olin added.
Avoiding the prosecutor's gaze, the defendant remained silent.
Segments from interrogations with Krayem conducted during the investigation were read out and played during the trial.
When questioned by police, Krayem insisted he had spent only 15 to 20 minutes on-site, unaware of what was going to happen, according to the preliminary investigation.
'I was terrified, it was the first time I had seen someone burn,' he said at the time.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Arab News
2 days ago
- Arab News
Author Sally Rooney says she will use BBC royalties to support banned group Palestine Action
LONDON: Irish novelist Sally Rooney has said she intends to use royalties from the BBC to fund Palestine Action, a group banned in the UK last month under terrorism legislation, it was reported on Sunday. For the latest updates, follow us on Instagram @ The 'Normal People' author made the remarks in a column for the Irish Times, where she argued that if her actions are considered terrorism under British law, 'so be it.' She wrote: 'My books, at least for now, are still published in Britain, and are widely available in bookshops and even supermarkets, in recent years the UK's state broadcaster has also televised two fine adaptations of my novels, and therefore regularly pays me residual fees.' She continued: 'I want to be clear that I intend to use these proceeds of my work, as well as my public platform generally, to go on supporting Palestine Action and direct action against genocide in whatever way I can. 'If the British state considers this 'terrorism', then perhaps it should investigate the shady organisations that continue to promote my work and fund my activities, such as WH Smith and the BBC.' The broadcaster and bookseller have not yet commented on Rooney's remarks. Palestine Action was proscribed by the UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper in July after activists allegedly broke into RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire and damaged two military aircraft, causing £7 million ($9.5 million) of damage. Membership, support or funding of the group carries a prison sentence of up to 14 years. Rooney, whose novels 'Normal People' and 'Conversations with Friends' have been adapted into BBC dramas, said she felt compelled to speak out after 'more than 500 peaceful protesters' were arrested in a single day on Aug. 9. 'If this makes me a 'supporter of terror' under UK law, so be it,' she wrote. She noted that in the six weeks since the ban, police had arrested more than 700 people for supporting the group. According to the Metropolitan Police, a further 60 individuals are set to be prosecuted, while Norfolk Police confirmed that 13 people were detained at a protest in Norwich on Saturday. Rooney said those arrested included an Irish citizen and a woman in Belfast. She criticized what she described as 'political policing,' contrasting the arrests with the absence of action when a mural celebrating the proscribed Ulster Volunteer Force was repainted in north Belfast last year. 'Palestine Action, proscribed under the same law, is responsible for zero deaths and has never advocated the use of violence against any human being,' she said. 'Why then are its supporters arrested for wearing T-shirts, while murals celebrating loyalist death squads are left untouched?' The author also questioned why Dublin, where the government has made its stance clear that Israel is committing genocide, had not intervened. 'Why then are its supporters arrested for protesting an acknowledged genocide?' she asked. Rooney has previously expressed support for Palestine Action in a witness statement submitted to the High Court in London, where the proscription is being challenged by one of its founders. She accused Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer's government of stripping citizens of 'basic rights and freedoms' in order to protect ties with Israel. The ramifications, she said, were 'profound,' warning that 'an increasing number of artists and writers can no longer safely travel to Britain to speak in public.'
Arab News
2 days ago
- Arab News
Iraq starts work on Daesh mass grave thought to contain thousands
BAGHDAD: Iraqi authorities have begun excavating the site of a mass grave believed to contain thousands of victims of the Daesh group near Mosul city, the project's director said on Sunday. The first phase, which was launched on August 10, includes surface-level excavation at the Khasfa site, director Ahmed Assadi said. An AFP correspondent visiting the site in northern Iraq on Sunday said the team unearthed human skulls buried in the sand. Khasfa is located near Mosul, where Daesh had established the capital of their self-declared 'caliphate' before being defeated in Iraq in late 2017. Assadi said that there were no precise figures for the numbers of victims buried there – one of dozens of mass graves Daesh left behind in Iraq – but a UN report from 2018 said Khasfa was likely the country's largest. Official estimates put the number of bodies buried at the site at least 4,000, with the possibility of thousands more. The project director said the victims buried there include 'soldiers executed by Daesh,' members of the Yazidi minority and residents of Mosul. Exhuming the bodies from Khasfa is particularly difficult, Assadi said, as underground sulfur water makes the earth very porous. The water may have also eroded the human remains, complicating DNA identification of victims, he added. Assadi said further studies will be required before his team can dig deeper and exhume bodies at the site – a sinkhole about 150-meter (nearly 500-foot) deep and 110-meter wide. Iraqi authorities said it was the site of 'one of the worst massacres' committed by Daesh militants, executing 280 in a single day in 2016, many of them interior ministry employees. In a lightning advance that began in 2014, Daesh had seized large swathes Iraq and neighboring Syria, enforcing a strict interpretation of Islamic law and committing widespread abuses. The United Nations estimates the militants left behind more than 200 mass graves which might contain as many as 12,000 bodies. In addition to Daesh-era mass graves, Iraqi authorities continue to unearth such sites dating to the rule of Saddam Hussein, who was toppled in a US-led invasion in 2003.
Arab News
3 days ago
- Arab News
UK to prosecute 60 people for supporting banned pro-Palestine group
LONDON: At least 60 people will be prosecuted for 'showing support' for the recently proscribed Palestine Action group, in addition to three already charged, London's Metropolitan Police said. 'We have put arrangements in place that will enable us to investigate and prosecute significant numbers each week if necessary,' the Met said in a statement. More than 700 people have been arrested since it was banned as a terrorist group in early July, including 522 people arrested at a protest last weekend for displaying placards backing the group — thought to be the highest ever recorded number of detentions at a single protest in the UK capital. 'The decisions that we have announced today are the first significant numbers to come out of the recent protests, and many more can be expected in the next few weeks,' said Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Parkinson. 'People should be clear about the real-life consequences for anyone choosing to support Palestine Action,' said Parkinson. The first three people were charged earlier this month with offenses under the Terrorism Act for backing Palestine Action, after they were arrested at a July demonstration. According to police, those charged for such offenses could face up to six months imprisonment, as well as other consequences. 'I am proud of how our police and CPS (prosecution) teams have worked so speedily together to overcome misguided attempts to overwhelm the justice system,' Met Police Commissioner Mark Rowley said. In a statement following the latest mass arrests, Interior Minister Yvette Cooper defended the Labour government's decision, insisting: 'UK national security and public safety must always be our top priority.' 'The assessments are very clear — this is not a nonviolent organization,' she added. The government outlawed Palestine Action on July 7, days after it took responsibility for a break-in at an air force base in southern England that caused an estimated £7.0 million ($9.3 million) of damage to two aircraft. The group said its activists were responding to Britain's indirect military support for Israel amid the war in Gaza. Britain's Interior Ministry has insisted that Palestine Action was also suspected of other 'serious attacks' that involved 'violence, significant injuries and extensive criminal damage.' Critics, including the UN, Amnesty International, and Greenpeace, have criticized the proscription as an overreach of the law and warned that the ensuing arrests threaten free speech. The UK's Liberal Democrat party said that it was 'deeply concerned about the use of terrorism powers against peaceful protesters.'
