- By Kathryn Armstrong
- BBC News
1 hour ago
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In Germany there were a number of trials against women who traveled to Iraq and Syria to join the “Islamic State” group (archive image).
A German woman who joined the Islamic State (IS) group has been sentenced to nine years in prison for crimes including slavery of a Yazidi woman.
The defendant was also found guilty of crimes against humanity and membership of a foreign terrorist organization.
A court in the western city of Koblenz said the 37-year-old abused the young Yazidi woman for three years while they lived in Syria and Iraq.
It was also found that she had encouraged her husband to rape and beat the woman.
“All of this served ISIS’s stated goal of eradicating the Yazidi faith,” prosecutors said at the start of the trial in January.
In 2014, IS fighters stormed the traditional Yazidi highlands in northern Iraq.
The Yazidis fled to Mount Sinjar. Many were killed and about 7,000 women and girls were confiscated and enslaved.
Among them was young woman Nadine K, who prosecutors said was named by the defendants, and whose husband used her as a slave in 2016 when they moved to the city of Mosul, Iraq.
They had traveled to Syria a year earlier to join IS and later moved back there with the woman, who was in her early 20s at the time.
In March 2019, Nadine K and her family were captured by Kurdish forces in Syria. She was arrested last year after her return to Germany.
During her trial, the defendant denied coercing the Yazidi woman, but said she should have done more for her.
The victim, who was released in 2019, testified in the trial against Nadine K. in February and was present at the verdict on Wednesday.
According to the Associated Press news agency, her lawyer said her client hopes anyone who has committed similar crimes will be brought to justice.
In Germany, there have recently been several trials against former IS members who have been accused of killing or abusing Yazidis.
A month later, a German court issued the first judgment in the world recognizing IS crimes against the Yazidi population as genocide.
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