Koblenz
Yazidi abused as a slave – prison sentence for 37-year-olds
The 37-year-old defendant is standing next to one of her lawyers in the courtroom of the Koblenz Higher Regional Court
© Thomas Frey / DPA
For three years, a 37-year-old woman abused a young Yazidi woman as a slave. Now she has to go to prison for more than nine years. In court, the two women sat face to face again.
According to the Koblenz Higher Regional Court, a 37-year-old woman, as a member of the terrorist organization Islamic State (IS), abused a young Jesidin as a slave. The German was sentenced to several years in prison on Wednesday. The woman was found guilty of, among other things, membership in a foreign terrorist organization, crimes against humanity and aiding and abetting genocide. The court imposed a total of nine years and three months imprisonment. The verdict is not yet legally binding.
The Senate saw it as proven that the 37-year-old had abused a young Yazidis for three years “in her own interest as a household slave” during her time with the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, the judge said. “The starting point is the meeting of two women whose lives would have had no points of contact under normal circumstances.”
The accused is a staunch IS supporter
At the beginning of 2013, the accused met her future husband in a bar in North Rhine-Westphalia. The couple married according to Islamic rites. The 37-year-old later traveled via Turkey to what was then IS territory.
Her husband brought the Jesidin into the household and regularly raped her. The accused made the rapes possible and encouraged. “She could and should have done something,” the judge told the accused on Wednesday.
Instead, the 37-year-old saw the young woman as her property and forced her to run the household. You made sure that the witness could not leave the house, the judge said.
The Senate was unable to find any indications that the accused had distanced themselves from the crime, the judge said. Chat messages had shown that she was a staunch IS supporter. But she had shown remorse and compassion “at least to some extent”. The judge described the accused as an intelligent and self-determined woman who willingly joined IS. During the hour-long verdict, the 37-year-old trembled all over and slapped her hands in disbelief several times over her face.
Escape worldwide
103 million refugees worldwide – these countries take in the most
Jesidin held as a slave arrives from Iraq for the hearing of the verdict
The victim, the young Jesidin, had traveled from her home country to hear the verdict, just as she had done to testify. She deserves great respect for having made the journey out of Iraq and found the strength to testify in front of strangers, the judge said.
“She hopes others will follow her example,” said her attorney Sonka Mehner. Her wish is that anyone who has committed such a crime will actually be tried.
According to the lawyer, the young woman is now married to her childhood sweetheart. However, her mother died during her imprisonment. “She suffered a lot from that and she still suffers today,” said Mehner. “She has constant nightmares and is far from having worked through it all.” But given the circumstances, she’s fine. “She is fortunate to have found most of her family again. That is by no means the case for everyone.”