terrorism
14 years imprisonment for the agonizing death of Yazidi Reda
The accused is accused, among other things, of keeping a five-year-old girl as a slave and letting her die of thirst. photo
© Matthias Balk/dpa
Little Reda was five years old when she died an unimaginably cruel death. Now an IS returnee from Lower Saxony has been convicted for the second time.
The presiding judge of the 9th criminal senate called the actions of the 32-year-old inhuman and referred to the serious psychological consequences that the mother is still struggling with today. The act was directed against the religious orientation of the two Yazidis. Jennifer W. became convinced that the right form of Islam is very conservative and joined the terrorist organization Islamic State (IS). In August 2014, the then 23-year-old traveled to Syria via Istanbul. In June 2015, she finally married an Iraqi who has already been convicted of, among other things, genocide.
Serious behavior
The court now considered the behavior of the convicts after the death of little Reda, who had been named by the couple Rania, to be serious. When the mother cried, Jennifer W. held a pistol to the desperate woman’s head and threatened to shoot her if she didn’t stop crying, the judge said in her verdict. The mother was exceptionally traumatized.
Federal prosecutor Jochen Weingarten is satisfied with the verdict, even though he had pleaded for 14 years and six months. The enslavement was embedded in the genocide of the Yazidis. In Weingarten’s opinion, the enslavement of mother and daughter was a particularly inhumane form, the child had died horribly.
The five-year-old’s mother accompanied the process as a joint plaintiff. Her client is happy about the verdict, but she cannot bring her daughter back, said her lawyer Natalie von Wistinghausen after the announcement. Jennifer W.’s remorse is also noted. “We wish it wasn’t just lip service and tactics,” the attorney said.
Certainty about the death of the child
At least the mother now has clarity that her daughter is really dead, as Jennifer W. had finally expressly confirmed the child’s death in the second procedure. This certainty could help her to process the death of her child, said von Wistinghausen.
Jennifer W.’s ex-husband was also held accountable by the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court. The Iraqi had bought the two Yazidi women as slaves after they had been kidnapped as part of the systematic persecution by the IS. He had wanted to punish the five-year-old by chaining him up in the yard because she had wet the bed. And that at temperatures of more than 50 degrees in the shade. By the time he untied the girl, she had suffered fatal heat stroke.
For von Wistinghausen, such investigations into crimes against Yazidis are not only important because of personal fates. They could not happen without the courageous testimonies of women like the girl’s mother, the attorney said. They do this for themselves, but also for their entire faith community. “They want the world to know what happened to the Yazidis and they want something like this not to happen again.”