German Woman Sentenced to Nine Years for Enslaving Yazidi Woman Under ISIS
Shafaq News/ A court in Koblenz, western Germany, has convicted a German citizen for enslaving a Yazidi woman during her time with ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
The Associated Press reports that the 37-year-old woman has been sentenced to nine years and three months in prison.
The court found her guilty of mistreating the Iraqi woman over three years, during which her husband brought the victim to their home and continued to rape her while his wife did not intervene.
The German defendant faced charges of "crimes against humanity, membership in a foreign terrorist organization, and complicity in genocide."
The defendant had joined her husband in 2014 to join ISIS in Syria before moving to Mosul, Iraq, the following year. From spring 2016 until early March 2019, she and her doctor husband subjected the Yazidi woman to slavery. The couple and the victim later relocated to Syria and remained there until the defeat of the organization, at which point the Yazidi woman regained her freedom.
Kurdish forces detained the German woman in a camp in northeastern Syria before being transferred to Germany in March 2022, where she was subsequently arrested. In September of the same year, the Federal Prosecution issued an indictment stating that the defendant's husband had constantly raped and abused the woman, and she was aware of it. The prosecution argued that she played an active role in preventing the captive from escaping.
According to AFP, the prosecution emphasized that the Yazidis were forced to observe Islamic rituals during the holy month of Ramadan as part of ISIS's goal to destroy the Yazidi faith.
During the trial, the defendant denied coercing the Yazidi woman and claimed to have frequently disagreed with her husband about her presence. She expressed regret for not doing more to help the victim.
This trial adds to a series of cases in Germany involving women who traveled to ISIS-controlled areas in Syria and Iraq. The ISIS invasion of Sinjar, northern Iraq, in August 2014 resulted in the killing of thousands of Yazidis, the enslavement of women, and the recruitment of children within the minority community.
