It must have been a terrible ordeal for the 16-year-old. In her presence, her relatives discussed how the young person should be killed because she is said to have violated religious rules – she herself had to write a farewell letter for this. The murder was to be disguised as a suicide. This scenario describes the indictment against the victim’s father and adult brother. The two 44 and 23-year-old men have had to answer to the Augsburg district court since Thursday. The public prosecutor’s office lists dangerous bodily harm, threats, deprivation of liberty and other offenses.
The two men belonged to the Yazidi faith. According to the indictment, corporal punishment and strict hierarchical rules were part of their religion. Marriages and other relationships are only permitted between Yazidis. When the daughter started a relationship with a Muslim of Turkish descent shortly before her 16th birthday, the situation in the family is said to have escalated. According to the indictment, not only the girl was threatened with death. The same thing happened to your friend. The Yazidi family have seen the family honor besmirched.
According to the investigation, the girl had had to endure physical and mental abuse for about four years – for sometimes banal reasons. The brother is said to have once beaten his sister with a belt. The reason was that she rode the tram against his will.
In view of the murder plans in the family, the daughter fled to the youth welfare office and was taken into care. When the father also threatened an employee of the authorities that he would cut off his daughter’s head, the two men were taken into custody. According to his defense attorney, the father has since converted to the Christian faith. He had doubts about the Yazidi faith while in detention.
At the beginning of the trial, negotiations between the defense attorney, the public prosecutor and the judge about a sentence in the case of confessions initially failed. The lawyers want to achieve prison sentences of a maximum of two years on probation for their clients. The public prosecutor considers this completely impossible. As a result, the defendants initially did not comment on the allegations. The process could even burst in the next few weeks. Because the father’s defense attorney does not agree that the daughter’s videotaped interrogation is presented by the investigating judge. The court wanted to save the young people from hearing witnesses during the trial.
The father’s lawyers want to hear the 16-year-old himself in the courtroom – from which the defenders of the accused son, however, distanced themselves. The prosecutor indicated that if the daughter has to appear in court again after her ordeal, he could ask for the case to be referred to the higher regional court.
The background may be that prison sentences of a maximum of four years can be imposed in district courts and the prosecutor here may then aim for a longer prison sentence. Judge Silke Knigge has already made it clear that under these circumstances the proceedings will probably not – as initially planned – be completed in January. She is examining further negotiation days until March. The public prosecutor’s office had also started criminal proceedings against other family members, but these are not the subject of the current trial.
Yazidis originally come from Iraq, Turkey, Syria or Iran. The accused father is Iraqi, the son who was born in Iraq now has German citizenship. The terrorist militia Islamic State (IS) systematically persecuted people of the Yazidi faith in Iraq and killed many.