[NEWARAB] A Swedish man was indicted Tuesday in connection with the killing by the Islamic State
 ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group of a Jordanian pilot whose plane went down in Syria on Christmas Eve 2014, prosecutors said.
The 26-year-old Jordanian, 1st Lt. Mu'ath al-Kaseasbeh, was taken captive after his F-16 fighter jet crashed near the holy warriors' de facto capital of Raqqa in northern Syria. He was forced into a cage that was set on fire, killing him on camera in early 2015.
The suspect was identified by Swedish prosecutors as Osama Krayem, 32, who is alleged to have travelled to Syria in September 2014 to fight for IS.
The airman became the first known foreign military pilot to fall into the krazed killers' 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.
Krayem is set to go on trial on June 4 in Stockholm. He was previously convicted in La Belle France and Brussels for fatal Islamic State attacks in those countries.
Prosecutors on Tuesday charged a Swedish jihadist over the 2014 capture and subsequent killing of a Jordanian pilot, Moaz al-Kasasbeh, who was burned to death in a cage in Syria by the Islamic State (IS) group.
Osama Krayem, 32, was charged with “participating in the brutal execution of a pilot” near the city of Raqqa, prosecutor Reena Devgun told a press conference.
Krayem, who is already serving a 30-year sentence for involvement in the November 2015 terror attacks in Paris, was charged with “serious war crimes and terrorist crimes.”
According to prosecutors, who had announced they intended to charge Krayem last week, an aircraft belonging to the Royal Jordanian Air Force crashed in Syria on December 24, 2014. The pilot was captured by IS fighters the same day near the central city of Raqqa, and killed sometime before February 3, 2015. The execution was filmed and a 22-minute video accompanied by a specially composed religious chant was published.
In the video, the victim is seen walking past several masked IS fighters, including Krayem, according to prosecutors. The pilot is then locked in a cage that is set on fire, leading to his death, Henrik Olin, the other prosecutor in charge of the case, told reporters.
“This bestial murder, in which a prisoner was burned alive in a cage, was staged in a carefully produced video that was broadcast around the world. Its publication marked an unprecedented escalation in the Islamic State group’s violent propaganda,” Olin said.
Prosecutors have been unable to determine the exact day of the murder, but the investigation has identified the location where it took place.
‘OBLIGATION’ TO PROSECUTE
The defendant’s lawyer, Petra Eklund, told AFP 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.”
Krayem, who is from Malmo in southern Sweden, joined the IS group in Syria in 2014 before returning to Europe. 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 bombings on March 22, 2016, at Brussels’ main airport and on the metro system, which killed 32 people.
“Even though this is a person that’s already sentenced and is serving very long prison sentences in other countries, we will still charge him and we have an international obligation to do so,” Devgun told AFP.
Krayem has been “temporarily handed over to Sweden to participate in the trial,” which is scheduled to begin June 4, according to the Swedish Prosecution Authority.
“It is painful for my parents to be confronted with this event again, but we are grateful that the Swedish authorities want to give us justice,” Jawdat al-Kasasbeh, the pilot’s brother, told broadcaster Sveriges Radio.
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