Jennifer W. from Lower Saxony was 23 when she joined the terrorist militia “Islamic State” and went to Iraq. She married an IS fighter and lived with him in a house in Fallujah in the summer of 2015, together with a Yazidi woman and her young daughter. Her husband kept them both as slaves, and the IS couple had the woman serve them. When the five-year-old girl whined and wet herself, the man grabbed the child and tied her in the yard in temperatures of around 50 degrees Celsius in the scorching sun. Jennifer W. saw that but didn’t do anything about it. She then brought water, but by then it was too late. The child probably died of heat stroke.
The Higher Regional Court (OLG) Munich sentenced Jennifer W. to ten years in prison in autumn 2021. The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) has now overturned this judgment and recognized it as incorrect. The procedure must be renegotiated. And for Jennifer W., it looks like she could now face life imprisonment. Because the BGH has above all criticized the assessment of the Munich court that this is a “minor case”. The judges, who now have to decide, cannot ignore this criticism.
The BGH criticizes the assessment of the act as a “less serious case”
The Higher Regional Court had only very briefly explained the assessment as a “minor case”. Jennifer W. did not act herself, the verdict said. If she intervened against her husband, she had to fear consequences from him and she did not realize that her intervention would come too late.
The BGH sees it completely differently. There can be no talk of a “less serious case”. Because the convicted woman had committed several crimes at once: enslavement resulting in death, membership in a terrorist organization and aiding and abetting attempted murder by omission. That has an aggravating effect.
Above all, however, the BGH criticized the fact that the Munich Higher Regional Court had disregarded the inhuman motives and goals of the accused: the woman was a fervent advocate of IS ideology. She also wore a veil in front of her face in Germany. After she had come to Germany to give birth to her own daughter, she wanted to go back to the IS area. She was arrested on the way there. She is said to have held a pistol to the head of the grieving Yazidis, who was crying for her dead child, and threatened to shoot her if she didn’t stop.
Jennifer W. is in custody in Hamburg. She has a child from her IS man
The BGH now explains that the inhuman attitude was indeed expressed. The human rights of the Yazidis have been negated by IS and their human dignity violated. The accused had approved of the crime of genocide against the Yazidis as well as the intention of the IS to wipe out the religious group.
The Federal Court of Justice largely upheld the appeal by the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office. The appeal of the convicts was dismissed. The woman is now in custody in Hamburg. She has a daughter herself from her marriage to the IS man. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in November 2021 by the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court. The judgment is final. Now it could be the same for his ex-wife.