Conviction for Crimes Against Humanity and Membership in a Terrorist Organization
A German woman who had joined the Islamic State (IS) group has been sentenced to nine years in prison. The charges against her include keeping a Yazidi woman as a slave, crimes against humanity, and membership in a foreign terrorist organization.
The court in Koblenz, Germany, ruled that the 37-year-old defendant had subjected the young Yazidi woman to abuse for three years while they were residing in Syria and Iraq. The court also found her guilty of encouraging her husband to rape and assault the woman.
Prosecutors stated at the beginning of the trial in January that these actions were aligned with IS’s objective to eradicate the Yazidi faith.
In 2014, IS fighters launched a genocidal campaign in the ancestral homeland of the Yazidi religious minority in northern Iraq’s Sinjar region. Thousands of men and boys were killed, and around 7,000 women and girls were enslaved and subjected to brutal treatment.
The accused, identified as Nadine K, and her husband had joined IS in Syria in 2015 and later moved to Mosul in northern Iraq. It was there that they enslaved the young Yazidi woman, who was in her early 20s at the time.
Nadine K and her family were captured by Kurdish forces in Syria in March 2019. Following her repatriation to Germany, she was arrested last year.
During the trial, Nadine K denied coercing the Yazidi woman but acknowledged that she should have done more to help her. The victim, who was freed in 2019, testified in court in February and was present for the verdict.
The victim’s lawyer expressed hope that all individuals who have committed similar crimes will face justice. Germany has seen a series of trials involving former IS members accused of killing or abusing Yazidis. In October 2021, a woman was sentenced to 10 years in prison for her role in the killing of a Yazidi girl whom she and her husband had purchased as a slave. Furthermore, in a groundbreaking ruling in November 2021, a German court recognized IS’s crimes against the Yazidi people as genocide.
SOURCE: Ref Image from The week
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