In January of 2015, a Muay Thai fighter named Valdet Gashi left his German homeland and told friends he was headed to Thailand for training. He was only going for “a few months,” he said. But Gashi wasn’t headed to Thailand at all. In fact, Gashi had more sinister travel plans, one that would ultimately end in his death at the hands of ISIS.
By all accounts, Valdet Gashi was an accomplished kickboxer, a fighter with reportedly more than 106 bouts in Thailand and other parts of Asia. According to several media outlets, including the International Business Times, Gashi won a European title and was twice a world champion. Here’s one of his devastating knockouts from 2006.
Gashi was so good and so popular that EliteBoxing TV did a 45-minute mini-doc on him. From the looks of it, Gashi was a happy-go-lucky fellow with family and friends who loved him.
At some point in mid-May, word began spreading about Gashi and his whereabouts. Then, a handful of Swiss journalists caught up with him for a phone interview. That’s when Gashi revealed he joined ISIS as a fighter. Even worse, it appeared that he opened an MMA school in Switzerland where some teenagers (who also joined ISIS) reportedly trained.
From Russia Today:
There he had trained three young men at the ages from 16 to 20, all of whom along with the sister of the one of the trainees also joined ISIS and left for Syria. All three trainees attended the same mosque in Winterthur, 20 Minuten reported.
“I want to do something good and to die while doing it. That is what would make me happy,” he said. He also asked his friends and family not to denounce his decision as “they did not know the whole story,” he Switzerland’s 20 Minuten news.
In early July, Gashi’s brother informed news outlets of his death in Syria. There were no details, though some websites claimed it was the result of an air strike. Turns out that wasn’t the case at all. Gashi was murdered by ISIS, the people he left his family behind to fight with side-by-side.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group that highlights Isis activities in Syria, has said that Valdet Gashi was arrested while trying to flee from Aleppo in Syria with ‘another group’.
The Thai kickboxing champion was then jailed in the city of Manbej in Syria and later killed by Isis, the monitoring group said, citing ‘reliable sources’.
What a sad story.