by Stefan J. Bos, Worthy News Europe Bureau Chief
MUNICH, GERMANY (Worthy News) – A German court has sentenced an Iraqi couple linked to the so-called Islamic State (IS) militant group to lengthy prison terms for enslaving, torturing, and sexually abusing two Yazidi girls in Iraq.
The Munich Higher Regional Court on Monday convicted the couple of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and membership in the Islamic State militant group. Throughout the trial, both defendants pleaded not guilty and contested the charges.
The husband, identified as Twana H.S. under German privacy law, received a life sentence, while his former wife, Asia R.A., was sentenced to nine and a half years in prison under juvenile law.
Judges found that the couple purchased two Yazidi girls, aged 5 and 12, as slaves in Iraq in 2015 and subjected them to forced labor, physical abuse, and repeated violence. The court also found that the husband repeatedly raped the older girl.
GENOCIDE AGAINST YAZIDIS
“The monstrous violence is so far removed from any sense of humanity that it seems unreal,” a representative of Germany’s Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office told the court.
The younger girl was forced to perform household labor, beaten, and compelled to learn Islamic prayers. The older victim later testified that she endured repeated rape and abuse, telling the court: “I wished I were dead.”
The court concluded that the crimes formed part of Islamic State’s campaign to destroy the Yazidi religious minority, which Germany and several other countries have officially recognized as genocide.
After the couple handed both girls over to other IS fighters in late 2017, the older victim was eventually rescued by her family. The fate of the younger child remains unknown.
RADICALIZATION AND ARREST
The husband had lived and worked as a hairdresser in Munich before becoming radicalized and joining Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. The couple returned to Germany in 2018 and were arrested in Bavaria in April 2024 on genocide-related charges.
The ruling underscores Germany’s continued use of universal jurisdiction to prosecute genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity committed abroad, regardless of where the crimes occurred.
Islamic State’s campaign against the Yazidi community since 2014 has left thousands of men dead, while thousands of women and children have been abducted, raped, enslaved, or otherwise abused in what the United Nations and several governments have recognized as genocide.
The extremist group also targeted Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq and Syria, killing, abducting, and forcibly displacing thousands in what international investigators have described as crimes against humanity and, in some cases, genocide.
The Munich verdict adds to a growing number of German prosecutions under the principle of universal jurisdiction, reinforcing efforts to hold former Islamic State members accountable for atrocities committed during the group’s self-declared caliphate and to deliver justice for survivors of some of this century’s gravest crimes.
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