[2][3][4] During the raid Delta Force soldiers were also reported to have rescued a young Yazidi woman the couple had been keeping as a slave.
According to John Knefel, reporting for Al Jazeera, legal critics have challenged the Obama administration for a lack of transparency over the justification for holding Umm Sayyaf in extrajudicial detention.
[10] 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.
[9][8] Yazidi girls, who had been held as sex slaves by Abu Sayyaf, and who later escaped, were the first to report that Mueller was also sexually abused before her death.
[9] 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.