Sweden tries militant over Jordanian pilot burned to death by Daesh
'Osama Krayem has, together and in agreement with other perpetrators belonging to Daesh, killed Maaz Al-Kassasbeh,' prosecutor Reena Devgun told the courtIn the 22-minute video of the killing, the victim is seen walking past several masked Daesh fighters, including Krayem, according to prosecutorsSTOCKHOLM: A convicted Swedish militant went on trial in Stockholm on Wednesday accused of war crimes for his role in the 2014 killing of a Jordanian pilot who was burned alive in Syria.The case is considered unique as the other militants involved in the brutal killing, which sparked international outrage at the time, are presumed dead, Swedish prosecutor Henrik Olin told AFP.Osama Krayem, a 32-year-old Swede, is already serving long prison sentences for his role in the Paris and Brussels attacks in 2015 and 2016.He now faces charges of 'serious war crimes and terrorist crimes' for his alleged participation in the killing of the Jordanian pilot.On December 24, 2014, an aircraft belonging to the Royal Jordanian Air Force crashed in Syria.The pilot was captured the same day by fighters from the Daesh group near the central city of Raqqa and he was burned alive in a cage sometime before February 3, 2015, when a video of the gruesome killing was published, according to the prosecution.The slickly-produced propaganda video was one of the first such videos released by Daesh.The killing shocked Jordan, which was participating in the US-led coalition's strikes against Daesh positions in Syria.'Osama Krayem has, together and in agreement with other perpetrators belonging to Daesh, killed Maaz Al-Kassasbeh,' prosecutor Reena Devgun told the court on Wednesday.'Osama Krayem, in uniform and armed, guarded and led the victim Maaz Al-Kassasbeh to a metal cage, where the latter was then locked up. One of the co-perpetrators then set fire to Maaz Al-Kassasbeh, who had no possibility to defend himself or call for help,' Devgun said.Krayem, wearing a dark blue shirt and with a thick beard and long, loose dark hair, had his back to the handful of journalists and spectators who followed Wednesday's proceedings behind a glass wall in the high security courtroom in Stockholm's district court.He appeared calm as the prosecution laid out the charges, which could result in a life sentence if Krayem is convicted.In the 22-minute video of the killing, the victim is seen walking past several masked Daesh fighters, including Krayem, according to prosecutors.The pilot is then seen being locked in the cage and praying as he is set on fire.Prosecutors have been unable to determine the exact date of the murder but the investigation has identified the location.The pilot's father, Safi Al-Kassasbeh, told AFP on Wednesday the family hoped Krayem would 'receive the harshest penalty according to the magnitude of the crime.''This is what we expect from a respected and fair law,' he said.It was thanks to a scar on the suspect's eyebrow, visible in the video and spotted by Belgian police, that Krayem was identified and the investigation was opened, Devgun said when the charges were announced last week.Other evidence in the case includes conversations on social media, including one where Krayem asks a person if he has seen a new video 'where a man gets fried,' according to the investigation, a copy of which has been viewed by AFP.'I'm in the video,' Krayem said, pointing out the moment when the camera zooms in on his face.The other person replies: 'Hahaha, yes, I saw the eyebrow.'The defendant's lawyer, Petra Eklund, told AFP before the start of the trial that her client admitted to being present at the scene but disputed the prosecution's version.'He denies the acts for which he is prosecuted,' she said.'He acknowledges having been present at that place during the event, but claims not to have acted in the manner described by the prosecutors in the account of the facts,' she added.Krayem, who is from Malmo in southern Sweden, joined the Daesh group in Syria in 2014 before returning to Europe in September 2015.He was arrested in Belgium in April 2016.In June 2022, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison in France for helping plan the November 2015 Paris attacks in which 130 people were killed.The following year, he was given a life sentence in Belgium for participating in the March 2016 bombings at Brussels' main airport and on the metro system, in which 32 people were killed.Krayem has been temporarily handed over to Sweden for the Stockholm trial, which is scheduled to last until June 26.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Arab News
8 hours ago
- Arab News
Syrian leader makes first visit to cradle of country's uprising
DAMASCUS: Syrian Arab Republic's interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa on Friday visited the southern city of Daraa, the cradle of the country's uprising, for the first time since ousting longtime ruler Bashar Assad almost six months ago. State news agency SANA published footage showing a cheering crowd greeting Sharaa, who was seen waving and shaking hands with people during the visit, which came on the Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Adha. Sharaa and Interior Minister Anas Khattab visited Daraa's historic Omari mosque during the trip, the presidency said in a statement, releasing images of the visit showing the leader among the crowd. SANA also said he met with local civil and military officials, as well as a delegation from the Christian minority. Provincial governor Anwar Al-Zoabi said in a statement that the visit was 'an important milestone in the course of national recovery.' In 2011, young boys who had scrawled graffiti against Assad were detained in Daraa, sparking nationwide protests. After the war erupted following the brutal repression of protests, rebels seized control of Daraa and hung on until 2018, when the city returned to Assad under a deal mediated by Russia that allowed former fighters to keep their light weapons. On December 6, as Sharaa's Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) led a lightning offensive on Damascus from the country's northwest, a coalition of armed groups from Daraa province was formed to help oust Assad, who was toppled two days later. The province was plagued by unrest in recent years.
Arab News
15 hours ago
- Arab News
Homes smashed, help slashed: no respite for returning Syrians
DAMASCUS: Around a dozen Syrian women sat in a circle at a UN-funded center in Damascus, happy to share stories about their daily struggles, but their bonding was overshadowed by fears that such meet-ups could soon end due to international aid cuts. The community center, funded by the United Nations' refugee agency (UNHCR), offers vital services that families cannot get elsewhere in a country scarred by war, with an economy broken by decades of mismanagement and Western sanctions. 'We have no stability. We are scared and we need support,' said Fatima Al-Abbiad, a mother of four. 'There are a lot of problems at home, a lot of tension, a lot of violence because of the lack of income.' But the center's future now hangs in the balance as the UNHCR has had to cut down its activities in Syria because of the international aid squeeze caused by US President Donald Trump's decision to halt foreign aid. The cuts will close nearly half of the UNHCR centers in Syria and the widespread services they provide — from educational support and medical equipment to mental health and counselling sessions — just as the population needs them the most. There are hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees returning home after the fall of Bashar Assad last year. UNHCR's representative in Syria, Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, said the situation was a 'disaster' and that the agency would struggle to help returning refugees. 'I think that we have been forced — here I use very deliberately the word forced — to adopt plans which are more modest than we would have liked,' he told Context/Thomson Reuters Foundation in Damascus. 'It has taken us years to build that extraordinary network of support, and almost half of them are going to be closed exactly at the moment of opportunity for refugee and IDPs (internally displaced people) return.' BIG LOSS A UNHCR spokesperson told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that the agency would shut down around 42 percent of its 122 community centers in Syria in June, which will deprive some 500,000 people of assistance and reduce aid for another 600,000 that benefit from the remaining centers. The UNHCR will also cut 30 percent of its staff in Syria, said the spokesperson, while the livelihood program that supports small businesses will shrink by 20 percent unless it finds new funding. Around 100 people visit the center in Damascus each day, said Mirna Mimas, a supervisor with GOPA-DERD, the church charity that runs the center with UNHCR. Already the center's educational programs, which benefited 900 children last year, are at risk, said Mimas. Nour Huda Madani, 41, said she had been 'lucky' to receive support for her autistic child at the center. 'They taught me how to deal with him,' said the mother of five. Another visitor, Odette Badawi, said the center was important for her well-being after she returned to Syria five years ago, having fled to Lebanon when war broke out in Syria in 2011. '(The center) made me feel like I am part of society,' said the 68-year-old. Mimas said if the center closed, the loss to the community would be enormous: 'If we must tell people we are leaving, I will weep before they do,' she said UNHCR HELP 'SELECTIVE' Aid funding for Syria had already been declining before Trump's seismic cuts to the US Agency for International Development this year and cuts by other countries to international aid budgets. But the new blows come at a particularly bad time. Since former president Assad was ousted by Islamist rebels last December, around 507,000 Syrians have returned from neighboring countries and around 1.2 million people displaced inside the country went back home, according to UN estimates. Llosa said, given the aid cuts, UNHCR would have only limited scope to support the return of some of the 6 million Syrians who fled the country since 2011. 'We will need to help only those that absolutely want to go home and simply do not have any means to do so,' Llosa said. 'That means that we will need to be very selective as opposed to what we wanted, which was to be expansive.' ESSENTIAL SUPPORT Ayoub Merhi Hariri had been counting on support from the livelihood program to pay off the money he borrowed to set up a business after he moved back to Syria at the end of 2024. After 12 years in Lebanon, he returned to Daraa in southwestern Syria to find his house destroyed — no doors, no windows, no running water, no electricity. He moved in with relatives and registered for livelihood support at a UN-backed center in Daraa to help him start a spice manufacturing business to support his family and ill mother. While his business was doing well, he said he would struggle to repay his creditors the 20 million Syrian pounds ($1,540) he owed them now that his livelihood support had been cut. 'Thank God (the business) was a success, and it is generating an income for us to live off,' he said. 'But I can't pay back the debt,' he said, fearing the worst. 'I'll have to sell everything.'
Asharq Al-Awsat
17 hours ago
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Homes Smashed, Help Slashed: No Respite for Returning Syrians
Around a dozen Syrian women sat in a circle at a UN-funded center in Damascus, happy to share stories about their daily struggles, but their bonding was overshadowed by fears that such meet-ups could soon end due to international aid cuts. The community center, funded by the United Nations' refugee agency (UNHCR), offers vital services that families cannot get elsewhere in a country scarred by war, with an economy broken by decades of mismanagement and Western sanctions. "We have no stability. We are scared and we need support," said Fatima al-Abbiad, a mother of four. "There are a lot of problems at home, a lot of tension, a lot of violence because of the lack of income." But the center's future now hangs in the balance as the UNHCR has had to cut down its activities in Syria because of the international aid squeeze caused by US President Donald Trump's decision to halt foreign aid. The cuts will close nearly half of the UNHCR centers in Syria and the widespread services they provide - from educational support and medical equipment to mental health and counselling sessions - just as the population needs them the most. There are hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees returning home after the fall of Bashar al-Assad last year. UNHCR's representative in Syria, Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, said the situation was a "disaster" and that the agency would struggle to help returning refugees. "I think that we have been forced - here I use very deliberately the word forced - to adopt plans which are more modest than we would have liked," he told Context/Thomson Reuters Foundation in Damascus. "It has taken us years to build that extraordinary network of support, and almost half of them are going to be closed exactly at the moment of opportunity for refugee and IDPs (internally displaced people) return." BIG LOSS A UNHCR spokesperson told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that the agency would shut down around 42% of its 122 community centers in Syria in June, which will deprive some 500,000 people of assistance and reduce aid for another 600,000 that benefit from the remaining centers. The UNHCR will also cut 30% of its staff in Syria, said the spokesperson, while the livelihood program that supports small businesses will shrink by 20% unless it finds new funding. Around 100 people visit the center in Damascus each day, said Mirna Mimas, a supervisor with GOPA-DERD, the church charity that runs the center with UNHCR. Already the center's educational programs, which benefited 900 children last year, are at risk, said Mimas. Nour Huda Madani, 41, said she had been "lucky" to receive support for her autistic child at the center. "They taught me how to deal with him," said the mother of five. Another visitor, Odette Badawi, said the center was important for her well-being after she returned to Syria five years ago, having fled to Lebanon when war broke out in Syria in 2011. "(The center) made me feel like I am part of society," said the 68-year-old. Mimas said if the center closed, the loss to the community would be enormous: "If we must tell people we are leaving, I will weep before they do," she said. UNHCR HELP 'SELECTIVE' Aid funding for Syria had already been declining before Trump's seismic cuts to the US Agency for International Development this year and cuts by other countries to international aid budgets. But the new blows come at a particularly bad time. Since former president Assad was ousted by opposition factions last December, around 507,000 Syrians have returned from neighboring countries and around 1.2 million people displaced inside the country went back home, according to UN estimates. Llosa said, given the aid cuts, UNHCR would have only limited scope to support the return of some of the 6 million Syrians who fled the country since 2011. "We will need to help only those that absolutely want to go home and simply do not have any means to do so," Llosa said. "That means that we will need to be very selective as opposed to what we wanted, which was to be expansive." ESSENTIAL SUPPORT Ayoub Merhi Hariri had been counting on support from the livelihood program to pay off the money he borrowed to set up a business after he moved back to Syria at the end of 2024. After 12 years in Lebanon, he returned to Daraa in southwestern Syria to find his house destroyed - no doors, no windows, no running water, no electricity. He moved in with relatives and registered for livelihood support at a UN-backed center in Daraa to help him start a spice manufacturing business to support his family and ill mother. While his business was doing well, he said he would struggle to repay his creditors the 20 million Syrian pounds ($1,540) he owed them now that his livelihood support had been cut. "Thank God (the business) was a success, and it is generating an income for us to live off," he said. "But I can't pay back the debt," he said, fearing the worst. "I'll have to sell everything."
