Sweden to charge IS suspect over Jordanian pilot burnt to death in Syria

Prosecutors said Thursday they plan to indict a convicted Swedish Islamic State suspect on charges including the 2015 killing of a Jordanian pilot burned to death in a cage in Syria.

Sweden's Prosecution Authority said in a statement it planned to charge a 32-year-old Swedish citizen on 27 May with "serious war crimes and terrorist crimes in Syria".

The trial is scheduled to begin on 4 June.

Prosecutors did not name their suspect in the statement, but Sweden asked France for the extradition of 32-year-old Osama Krayem, who was already sentenced for the 2015 attacks in Paris and the attacks in Brussels a year later.

The prosecutors' statement said an aircraft belonging to the Royal Jordanian Air Force was shot down in Syria on 24 December 2014.

The pilot was captured by the Islamic State (IS) group the same day near the central city of Raqqa, it added.

The pilot was locked in a cage and burned alive, and images of his death were broadcast by the group.

Krayem "is suspected of having executed the pilot, together with other perpetrators belonging to IS", said prosectors.

"The investigation has shown that the man, armed and masked, together with others forced the pilot into a metal cage," they added.

"The cage was subsequently set on fire by one of the co-perpetrators, and the pilot died as a consequence of the fire."

Krayem, who is from Malmö in southern Sweden, joined IS in Syria in 2014 before returning to Europe.

In June 2022, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison in France for assisting in the planning of the 2015 Paris attacks, in which 130 people died.

The following year, he was given a life sentence in Belgium for participating in the bombings on 22 March 2016, at Brussels' main airport and on the metro system, which killed 32 people.

He has been "temporarily handed over to Sweden to participate in the trial", the prosecution said.