Kayla Mueller’s boyfriend describes effort to free her

Associated Press

PHOENIX

Kayla Mueller was in a detention cell, face-to-face with her Syrian boyfriend. Had she told her captors she was married to Omar Alkhani, she might have been freed from the hands of Islamic State militants, he said. Instead, she denied being his wife.

After posing as Mueller’s husband and persuading a string of people to let him plead for her release, Alkhani left the room empty-handed. He said he saw her face for just a few seconds when guards uncovered it.

The guards had assured Mueller, 26, that Alkhani would not be harmed if she told the truth, so she apparently stuck to honesty to save him rather than take the slim chance to save herself, he said.

Such was the nature of Mueller, the American hostage from Prescott who was content without new clothes, a hair dryer, makeup and much of the wages she earned as an aid worker so she could give to others.

Alkhani spoke to The Associated Press on Sunday via webcam from Turkey in one of his first interviews, detailing how he met Mueller in 2010 and the last time he saw her in 2013 as a prisoner of the Islamic State group.

The U.S. government and Mueller’s family confirmed her death last week.

About 200 people turned out Saturday night at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, where Mueller studied, to honor her.

Mueller and Alkhani were taken hostage in August 2013 after leaving a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Aleppo, Syria, where he was hired to fix the Internet.