American Muslim Activist Says Kayla Mueller was Sentenced to Death by ISIS in 2013

Feb 08, 2015 09:18 AM EST

(Photo : Reuters) Members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS)

Mauri Saalakhan, an American Muslim activist, said on Saturday that Kayla Mueller, the aid worker who the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) claims died in the airstrike made by Jordan in Raqqa, was sentenced to death in 2013 by the extremist organization.

The sentence was as vengeance for imprisonment in Texas of a Pakistani woman, neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui. ISIS demanded from Mueller's family payment of a US$7.2 million for the release of the aid worker from Arizona or the release of Siddiqui, ABC reports.

Like Us on Facebook

If either demands was not met, ISIS threatened on July 12 to execute Mueller in 30 days. Saalakhan said the information about the ransom demand came from the hostage's family.

Open letters from the Muslim activist and an Arizona pastor convinced ISIS not to carry out its execution threat. Even Siddiqui's family was not in favor of linking her case with Mueller as the Pakistani clan said Mueller should not suffer.

Siddiqui is incarcerated at a prison medical center in Texas, serving an 86-year sentence for the death of FBI agents, American soldiers and interpreters who were assigned to question her in Afghanistan over her alleged al Qaeda connection.

Mueller was abducted in August 2013 while leaving a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Allepo. She served as aid worker for aid organizations in Turkey, West Bank, Israel and India. In Dharmasala, she taught English to refugees from Tibet.

Her family are not in favor of launching a dangerous rescue mission to get back their daughter and asked Washington to instead negotiate for her release, reports Foreign Policy.

There is a general disbelief in the ISIS claim that Mueller died in the Jordanian airstrike based on the further loss in the jihadist group's reputation when it turned out that while negotiating for a prisoner swap involving an Iraqi suicide bomber held in Jordan and detained pilot 1^st Lieutenant Moab al-Kasasbeh, who, it turned out, was already dead, having been burned by the ISIS while inside an iron cage.