FRANKFURT – A German court yesterday issued the first ruling worldwide to recognise crimes against the Yazidi community as genocide, in a verdict hailed by activists as a “historic” win for the minority group.
The court in Frankfurt sentenced an Iraqi man to life in jail for genocide against Yazidis, as well as crimes against humanity resulting in death, war crimes, aiding and abetting war crimes, and bodily harm resulting in death.
Taha al-Jumailly, 29, who joined the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group in 2013, passed out in the courtroom after the verdict was read out.
Yazidi survivor and 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad thanked Germany for the “historic” ruling, which she described as “a win for survivors of genocide, survivors of sexual violence, and the entire Yazidi community”.
Yazidis, a Kurdish-speaking group hailing from northern Iraq, have for years been persecuted by IS militants who have killed hundreds of men, raped women, and forcibly recruited children as fighters.
In May, United Nations special investigators reported that they had collected “clear and convincing evidence” of genocide by IS against Yazidis.
“This is the outcome every single Yazidi and all genocide survivors were hoping to see,” said Natia Navrouzov, a lawyer and member of non-governmental organisation Yazda that gathers evidence of crimes committed by IS against Yazidis.
“We will make sure that more trials such as this take place,” she said.
Torment
Prosecutors said Jumailly and his now ex-wife, German Jennifer Wenisch, “purchased” a Yazidi woman and child as household “slaves”, while living in then IS-occupied Mosul in 2015.
They later moved to Fallujah, where Jumailly is accused of chaining the girl aged five to a window outdoors in heat rising to 50°C as a punishment for wetting her mattress, leading her to die of thirst.
In a separate trial, Wenisch, 30, was sentenced to 10 years in jail in October for “crimes against humanity in the form of enslavement”, and aiding and abetting the girl’s killing by failing to offer help.
Identified only as Nora B., the child’s mother testified in both Munich and Frankfurt about the torment inflicted on her daughter.
She also described being raped multiple times by IS jihadists after they invaded her village in the Sinjar mountains in northwestern Iraq in August 2014.
Nora, who is in witness protection, said in a statement through lawyer Natalie von Wistinghausen that she is “relieved” by the ruling.
“It’s in the crimes committed against her and her daughter that the IS ideology, including the aim of destroying Yazidis’ religion and community, is manifested,” added the lawyer.
‘Replicate around the world’
The mother was represented by a team including London-based human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, who has been at the forefront of a campaign for IS crimes against Yazidis to be recognised as genocide, along with Murad.
“This is the moment Yazidis have been waiting for,” Clooney said in a statement. “There is no more denying it – IS is guilty of genocide.”
Germany, home to a large Yazidi community, is one of the few countries to have taken legal action over such abuses.
German courts have already handed down five convictions against women for crimes against humanity related to Yazidis committed in territories held by IS.
Prosecutors in Naumburg yesterday charged German Leonora M. with aiding and abetting crimes against humanity after she and her IS husband enslaved a Yazidi woman in Syria in 2015.
Germany has charged several German and foreign nationals with war crimes and crimes against humanity carried out abroad, using the legal principle of universal jurisdiction that allows offences to be prosecuted even if they were committed in a foreign country.
“Germany is not only raising awareness about the need for justice, but is also acting on it,” said Murad. “Their use of universal jurisdiction in this case can, and should, be replicated by governments around the world.” – AFP, December 1, 2021
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