Status: 01/17/2023 8:33 p.m
The Federal Court of Justice has largely confirmed the life imprisonment of an IS fighter for genocide and crimes against humanity through severe abuse of two Yazidis women – and thus an “international novelty”.
Convictions for genocide are rare in German courts. But in the past few months, the competent federal prosecutor’s office had run three procedures. Two of them have been finalized. The Federal Court of Justice has now confirmed one of them in an appeal.
Yazidi women kept as slaves
It is about criminal proceedings against men and women who had joined the terrorist militia “Islamic State” (IS). They were brought to Germany between 2019 and 2022 and arrested upon entry – two German IS returnees and the Iraqi former husband of another German IS woman, Jennifer W., who had already had to answer to the Munich Higher Regional Court.
The federal prosecutor accused the three of having kept Yazidi women as slaves in their household or having helped to do so. It was about Yazidi women who had been captured during the IS attack on Iraq’s Sinjar region in August 2014. At that time, tens of thousands of people were killed, abducted and enslaved by the terrorist militia.
First conviction for genocide against the Yazidis
The case, which has now been decided by the Federal Court of Justice, was about Jennifer W.’s husband. The Frankfurt Higher Regional Court sentenced him to life imprisonment at the end of November last year, among other things, for genocide. In the summer of last year, the Attorney General Peter Frank called this decision “an international novelty”:
As far as I know, this is the first time a court has concluded that ISIS committed genocide against the Yazidis.
According to the International Criminal Code, genocide is punishable by life imprisonment. It is about the allegation of intentionally destroying a religious group by inflicting “severe physical or mental damage” on a member of this group.
Little girl enslaved too
According to the findings of the Higher Regional Court, the man had worked for IS since 2015 and approved of their actions against the Yazidis. According to the verdict, he bought a Yazidi woman and her little daughter and kept them as slaves.
The list of individual allegations is long: he forced them to do household chores, “totally determined” their lives, forbade them to leave the property, starved them, forced them to pray in Islam and abused them daily to make them docile keep. It caused serious physical and mental damage to the Jesidin and her daughter. To punish the five-year-old daughter, he tied her to a window grille in the yard in the blazing heat. The child died there of heat stroke.
Acting in accordance with the IS ideology
He did all this in order to make a targeted contribution to destroying the Yazidi religious group as such, in line with IS ideology. The Federal Court of Justice had nothing substantial to criticize about these findings and the assessment of the Higher Regional Court. The genocide of the Yazidis has thus been confirmed in a first case by the highest German criminal court.
Women are accused of complicity in genocide
The two women were and are accused of complicity in genocide. The first was sentenced by the Higher Regional Court of Hamburg last summer – the appeal was withdrawn. The trial against the second woman began last week before the Koblenz Higher Regional Court.
The trials are therefore also about the collective fate of the Yezidi religious community. The formerly enslaved Yazidi women appear not only as witnesses, but also as joint plaintiffs. In Koblenz, the Jesidin, who is said to have been kept as a slave by the accused and her husband, is said to testify as a witness in mid-February.
No accusation of genocide in previous proceedings
In previous criminal proceedings against IS returnees, the main focus was initially on allegations of membership in the terrorist organization IS. Legal arguments were not easy, especially in proceedings against women, who usually took care of the household and raising children at IS. But the federal prosecutor’s office was ultimately successful.
The former wife of the Iraqi whose case was before the Federal Court of Justice – the German Jennifer W. – was convicted by the Munich Higher Regional Court in October. The accusation of genocide played no role in the proceedings. But her case is already in Karlsruhe. The Federal Court of Justice wants to hear about it next week.
(Az. 3 StR 230/22)