Swedish man convicted for his role in 2015 killing of a Jordanian pilot by the Islamic State group

STOCKHOLM (AP) — A Swedish man was convicted and sentenced to life in prison on Thursday for his role in the 2015 killing of a Jordanian pilot by the Islamic State militant group, Swedish media reported.

1st Lt. Mu’ath al-Kaseasbeh, 26, 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. Krayem, armed and masked, was among those who forced al-Kaseasbeh into the cage and to his death, prosecutors say. He can still file an appeal.

Krayem 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.

Al-Kaseasbeh was 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.

Attorney Mikael Westerlund, who represented the pilot’s family, said his clients were happy with Thursday’s verdict after they had lost hope there would be justice for al-Kaseasbeh, TT reported.

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 is shown wearing an orange jumpsuit and standing in an outdoor cage as a masked militant ignites a line of fuel leading to it. He displayed signs of having been beaten, including a black eye.

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.

The Associated Press