A Swedish court on Thursday sentenced 32-year-old Osama Krayem to life in prison after finding him guilty of committing a war crime for his role in the 2015 execution of Jordanian pilot First Lt. Mu’ath al-Kasasbeh in Syria.
Al-Kasasbeh, 26, was captured by Islamic State (IS) militants after his F-16 crashed near Raqqa in December 2014 during a coalition mission. He was later burned alive in a cage, a killing filmed and released by IS in a widely condemned propaganda video.
Krayem, originally from Malmö, had traveled to Syria in September 2014 to join IS.
Although another militant lit the fire, the Stockholm District Court said he took part in detaining Al-Kasasbeh, guarding him and escorting him to the execution site.
“The evidence has shown that the defendant was at the execution site, uniformed and armed, and let himself be filmed,” presiding Judge Anna Liljenberg Gullesjö said. “His actions contributed so actively to the death of the pilot that he should be considered a perpetrator.”
The ruling included compensation of 80,000 Swedish kronor (about $8,200) each to al-Kasasbeh’s parents and siblings.
In addition to convicting Krayem of a war crime, the court concluded that the filming and distribution of the pilot’s execution video constituted an act of terrorism, aimed at intimidating those who opposed the ideology of IS.
French authorities extradited Krayem to Sweden in March for trial. He is currently serving multiple sentences.
In 2022, Krayem was convicted in France for his role in the 2015 Paris attacks that killed 130 people and was sentenced to 30 years. In 2023, a Belgian court gave him a life sentence for the Brussels bombings that killed 32. Both attacks were tied to the same IS network.
