A German court affirmed the conviction of ISIS member “Jennifer W.” for aiding and abetting in committing crimes against humanity when she abused a five-year-old girl from the Yazidi religious minority, according to a press release from human rights organization Yazda. In addition to affirming her conviction, the Higher Regional Court of Munich also increased her prison sentence from 10 to 14 years. Jennifer’s surname is abbreviated due to German legal protections against the disclosure of her full surname.
The court found that Jennifer W. and her Iraqi ex-husband held the five-year-old Yazidi girl and her mother as “household slaves” for approximately six weeks in 2015. During that time, Jennifer W. and her husband denied the two access to food and regularly subjected them to beatings.
Further, the court found that Jennifer W. and her husband knew the girl and her mother were both Yazidi, and yet they forced the two to engage in Islamic law practices and adopt Muslim names. This fit within Jennifer W. and her husband’s commitment to ISIS, an Islamic terrorist organization.
According to Yazda, Jennifer W. confessed to all of the allegations during the court’s two month sentencing hearings period.
Amal Clooney of the Clooney Foundation for Justice said:
This decision provides a measure of justice for my client who has put her life on the line to give evidence in the trials of her captors. Her courage and determination have led to the conviction of two ISIS members for crimes against Yazidis. The conviction for genocide was the first of its kind in the world and will benefit victims of ISIS for generations to come.
The UN has confirmed that ISIS carried out a genocide against the Yazidi located in Iraq because ISIS views the religious minority as “devil-worshippers.” This is likely due to the Yazidi’s closely-held religious practices and beliefs.
In 2014, ISIS militants took over the city of Sinjar, Iraq—an area primarily inhabited by Yazidis. Once there, ISIS militants implemented a campaign of violence and terror, resulting in the death of thousands of men and older women. The younger women and girls were forced into sexual slavery. UN experts described the campaign as an effort to “permanently destroy the capacity of these women and children to have children and build families within the Yazidi community.”
The Higher Regional Court of Munich’s ruling comes amid the convictions of three other German ISIS members. All three were accused of committing crimes against humanity against members of the Yazidi religious minority.
