LONDON - A Syrian citizen named Omar Alkhani says he tried to rescue American aid worker Kayla Mueller from the clutches of the Islamic State (ISIS) by pretending he was her husband.
“Because I am Syrian and not a spy, and she was my wife, they would have let her go. I came to get Kayla out but that was the last time I saw her,” Alkhani, 33, told the Daily Mail, speaking for the first time on this case.
Mueller, 26, and Alkhani were kidnapped by gunmen in August 2013 on their way to a bus station in Aleppo to return to Turkey. Alkhani was released two months later but Mueller was kept as a hostage, with ISIS saying she was killed in an airstrike carried out by Jordanian fighter jets last week.
The Daily Mail wrote on Sunday that, “At great personal risk, Omar had ventured into the heart of the terror group's power base in Syria to try to bring her home.”
Alkhani who accompanied Mueller to Syria from Turkey as a photographer claims to have told Mueller, his girlfriend, that her captors “Won't harm a Muslim man's wife.”
“The (prison) judge said she'd denied being my wife and I asked her why she had said this. She was crying and could only say, ‘I don't know,’” Alkhani was quoted as saying.
“The judge then promised Kayla that Omar would not be hurt if she told the truth. She replied: 'No, he is not my husband. He is my fiancé,'” Alkhani said.
Alhani himself was also detained and placed in a separate cell by ISIS.
“To this day I don't know why she didn't go along with the story,” said Alkhani.
He told the Daily Mail: “She once asked how much I loved her and I said that I would risk my life for her. And I did. I tried for her. She was the most beautiful thing that happened to my life. We were planning our future together.”
Alkhani later returned to Syria in the hope of saving Mueller and he met with the ISIS commander in Idlib in charge of Mueller.
“After waiting weeks for an audience, Alkhani tried to persuade the judge that Kayla was his wife – but was accused of lying. He asked to see Kayla to put the question to her,” wrote the British newspaper.
“I hadn't given up hope and I was still sure I would succeed.”
When his plan failed, Alkhani himself was also imprisoned for five months and says he was held in the same prison as American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, who were beheaded by ISIS last year.
“I did not see them, but I heard their names being called by the guards. I heard the names James Foley and Steven Sotloff,” Alkhani said.
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