Munich court sentences Iraqi man to life imprisonment for enslavement and rape of Yazidi girls
A 45-year-old Iraqi was sentenced to life imprisonment in Munich on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.
Munich court sentences Iraqi man to life imprisonment for enslavement and rape of Yazidi girls
A Munich court sentenced a 45-year-old Iraqi national to life imprisonment on Monday. The judges found him guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The case concerned the enslavement and sexual abuse of two Yazidi girls. His 30-year-old ex-wife received a prison sentence of nine and a half years. This was reported by the news agency DPA.
The crimes themselves were committed by the former couple in the Middle East. Nevertheless, they stood trial in Munich because Germany applies what is known as universal jurisdiction. This permits the prosecution of serious crimes committed abroad within Germany.
According to the prosecution, the man, who belonged to the terrorist organisation Islamic State (IS), purchased a five-year-old Yazidi girl in late 2015. The couple subsequently held the child captive in Iraq and Syria for more than two years, sexually abused her, subjected her to forced labour, and tortured her in other ways. Later, in October 2017, they acquired a twelve-year-old Yazidi girl, who suffered the same fate.
In November 2017, the Iraqi couple handed both girls over to other IS fighters. The family of the older daughter later managed to buy her freedom; she testified before the Munich court as a witness. The fate of the younger girl remains uncertain.
The convicted Iraqi had come to Germany after the year 2000 and initially worked as a hairdresser in Munich. He subsequently became radicalised in a local mosque and travelled to the Middle East in 2015. Together with his wife, he returned to Germany in 2018. The police arrested the couple two years ago.
The terrorist organisation Islamic State controlled vast territories in Iraq and Syria between 2014 and 2017 before being defeated in its last Syrian strongholds in 2019. The Yazidis, an ancient religious minority, were regarded by IS as devil worshippers. The terrorists killed more than 5,000 of them, enslaved 7,000 Yazidi women and girls, and displaced the majority of the community, which numbered 550,000 members, from their ancestral homeland in northern Iraq.
Source: Aktuálně.cz
Source: Google News CZ — Crime (cs)