The cruelty of those who claim to serve God by killing His people has once again been exposed. This time in Libya, where ISIS reportedly murdered a young Egyptian Christian for refusing to deny Jesus.

Reports by Christian non-governmental groups say 20-year-old Milad Malak, a Coptic Christian, had travelled to Libya alongside two of his Muslim friends in search of work.

They arrived in Zliten, Libya, on September 2 and stayed with a group of Egyptian migrant workers. But they were reportedly kidnapped on Oct. 4 by ISIS fighters who abused them and demanded ransom money.

The three men each paid about $4,700 to the jihadists. ISIS freed his two Muslim friends and kept Malak after they found that he was a Christian. He was said to have been repeatedly tortured to force him to convert to Islam, but he refused.

Following the accounts of Malak’s two Muslim friends who reported back to his family after returning to Egypt, Malak’s sister Madonna Malak was quoted as saying that his brother was tortured “until he attained martyredom.”

She said that “they tortured him, demanding that he renounce his faith—yet he refused, telling them, ‘Even if you were to hack me to pieces, I would never renounce my faith.’”

According to his family, Malak’s body was retrieved and returned to Egypt, where funeral services were held for him on Oct. 28 before his burial.

A Pattern of Cruelty

Malak’s death is not an isolated crime. It follows a well-documented pattern of ISIS deliberately targeting Christians in Libya and across the Middle East, not because they were soldiers or politicians, but simply because they were Christians.

The most infamous case remains the February 15, 2015 massacre on a beach near Sirte, Libya, when ISIS beheaded 21 Christian migrant workers — 20 Egyptian Copts and one Ghanaian Christian, Matthew Ayariga — after they refused a final demand to renounce their faith. ISIS filmed the killings and posted the video online.

Today, Libya is ranked No. 9 on Open Doors’ World Watch List of the most dangerous countries for Christians. In the Muslim-majority country, Christians face heavy pressure to leave their religion.

Malak, who served as a deacon at a Coptic church in Sebarbay, his home village in Egypt’s northern Gharbia governorate, now joins that long cloud of witnesses who chose Christ over life itself.