Swedish man convicted for his role in 2015 killing of a Jordanian pilot by the Islamic State group
The 26-year-old Jordanian, 1st Lt. Mu'ath al-Kaseasbeh, was taken captive after his F-16 fighter jet crashed near the extremists' de facto capital of Raqqa in northern Syria. He was forced into a cage that was set on fire in early 2015.
The suspect, identified by Swedish prosecutors as Osama Krayem, 32, is alleged to have traveled to Syria in September 2014 to fight for IS.
Swedish prosecutors say Krayem, armed and masked, was among those who forced al-Kaseasbeh into the cage. The pilot died in the fire.
Krayem was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday, Swedish news agency TT reported. He was indicted by Swedish prosecutors in May on suspicion of committing serious war crimes and terrorist crimes in Syria.
He was previously convicted in France and Brussels for fatal Islamic State attacks in those countries.
The airman became the first known foreign military pilot to fall into the militants' hands after the U.S.-led international coalition began its aerial campaign against the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq in 2014.
Jordan, a close U.S. ally, was a member of the coalition and the pilot's killing appeared aimed at pressuring the government of Jordan to leave the alliance.
In a 20-minute video released in 2015, purportedly showing al-Kaseasbeh's killing, he displayed signs of having been beaten, including a black eye. He is shown wearing an orange jumpsuit and standing in an outdoor cage as a masked militant ignites a line of fuel leading to it.
The footage, widely released as part of the militant group's propaganda, sparked outrage and anti-IS demonstrations in Jordan.
In 2022, Krayem was among 20 men convicted by a special terrorism court in Paris for involvement in a wave of Islamic State attacks in the French capital in 2015, targeting the Bataclan theater, Paris cafés and the national stadium. The assaults killed 130 people and injured hundreds, some permanently maimed.
Krayem was sentenced to 30 years in prison, for charges including complicity to terrorist murder. French media reported that France agreed in March to turn Krayem over to Sweden for the investigation and trial.
In 2023, a Belgian court sentenced Krayem, among others, to life in prison on charges of terrorist murder in connection with 2016 suicide bombings that killed 32 people and wounded hundreds at Brussels airport and a busy subway station in the country's deadliest peacetime attack.
Krayem was aboard the commuter train that was hit, but did not detonate the explosives he was carrying.
Both the Paris and Brussels attacks were linked to the same Islamic State network.
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"Even when you leave for Mykolaiv or another city, you are constantly trying to listen."For civilians like Oliferenko, the drones have transformed the ordinary sounds of a populated area – cars, motorcycles, generators, lawnmowers, air conditioners – into a psychological gauntlet for civilians to run every day, even as they contend with the real danger of the drones the soldiers coming back from the front, like Pavlo, the drones have created a new and specific type of fear, one that is not easy to shake."You see the world as a battlefield," Pavlo said. "It can become a battlefield any second."And of all the triggers, hearing - the human sense drones are exploiting so effectively - was the most insidious, he said."When you see something, your brain can check it in a second, you can realise what it is very fast."But an unknown sound is different. Your brain has been changed. You cannot ignore it, you must respond. Because at the frontline, it could save your life."Svitlana Libet contributed to this report. Photographs by Joel Gunter.
