Doctors Without Borders had the opportunity to help negotiate the release of American ISIS hostage Kayla Mueller, but left her to be raped and killed by Islamic State leader Abu Bakr Al-Bagdadi.
“I don’t think there was a moral responsibility,” Jason Cone, a U.S. Doctors Without Border’s spokesman told ABC News when confronted. “We can’t be in the position of negotiating for people who don’t work for us.”
Mueller was a humanitarian activist who worked in Southern Turkey assisting Syrian refugees. She traveled to Aleppo, Syria, for a single day along with her boyfriend to help install some Doctors Without Border’s equipment. She was not part of an official Doctors Without Borders delegation, but was abducted by ISIS from one of the non-profit’s vehicles after departing Aleppo on August 3.
Mueller eventually made her way to an ISIS safe house where she was made to be Bagdadi’s personal sex slave. Bagdadi reportedly Mueller upon her arrival, “I am going to marry you by force and you are going to be my wife. If you refuse, I will kill you.”
A freed ISIS hostage, who shared a cell with Mueller, described one instance to CNN in which her and Mueller, “were completely black from the beating. They beat us with everything: cables, belts and wooden sticks.”
Meanwhile Mueller’s parents were trying to secure her release and contacted any organization they thought could assist them. Mueller’s parents told ABC News Doctors Without Borders refused to speak with them, even though they were negotiating the release of seven of their personnel from ISIS. The organization even refused to speak with an FBI case agent trying to facilitate Mueller’s release.
Chris Voss, a retired FBI hostage negotiator who secured U.S. citizen’s release from Iraq, told ABC News, “They could’ve said, ‘Yes, you work for us.’ And they could’ve extended her some sort of protection, some sort of legitimacy that would’ve cost them nothing. And why they leave her out there like that? It’s frightening. It scares me.” Voss elaborated “I think that’s totally abandoning someone that you had no reason to abandon. I mean, it sets that person up for incredibly negative, horrific consequences.”
Alan Dershowtiz, a Harvard Constitutional Lawyer and international law expert, told the Daily Caller News Foundation in November 2015 he regards Doctors Without Borders as “Doctors Without Morals.”
Mueller’s mother told ABC News on Friday “They’re a fabulous organization, and they do wonderful work,” adding “but somewhere in a boardroom, they decided to leave our daughter there to be tortured and raped and ultimately murdered.”
Mueller’s mother learned of her death in 2015 when she received an email from ISIS with three pictures of Mueller’s bruised corpse.
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