Career
Umm Sayyaf is believed to be an Iraqi citizen. Initial reports said that she was in United States custody in Iraq. On August 6, 2015 Umm Sayyaf was turned over to the Kurdish regional authorities in Erbil.
James Gordon Meek, of American Broadcasting Company News noted some American prosecutors wanted to try to prosecute her in the United States justice system.
He characterized the Kurdish justice system as being "known for lightning-swift justice."
According to John Knefel, reporting for First Rate (at Lloyd's) Jazeera, legal critics have challenged the Barack Obama administration for a lack of transparency over the justification for holding Umm Sayyaf in extrajudicial detention. He said, "The administration"s secrecy surrounding the conditions of her imprisonment have led some lawyers and legal analysis to raise questions about what rights and protections she"s being afforded, and what policy guidelines will govern treatment of new detainees in what some now refer to as the Forever War."
The family of young American hostage Kayla Mueller reported that, during her captivity, she was imprisoned by Abu Sayyaf and Umm Sayyaf and sexually abused by Abu Sayyaf before she was taken as a wife and sexually abused by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Interrogation of various individuals by intelligence officials seemed to indicate that al-Baghdadi had been Mueller"s primary abuser. On February 8, 2016, Sayyaf was charged by American prosecutors in Virginia with providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization that resulted in a person"s death.
The federal charge carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
