German authorities have apprehended an Iraqi couple suspected of being members of the Islamic State group, accused of committing genocide and crimes against humanity by enslaving two Yazidi girls.
The couple, identified as Twana H. S. and Asia R. A., were taken into custody on Tuesday for their alleged mistreatment of the girls from 2015 to 2017 in Iraq and Syria.
According to federal prosecutors, the girls were subjected to physical abuse, repeated sexual assault, and were prohibited from practicing their religion. The couple reportedly handed the girls over to other ISIS members before leaving Syria in November 2017.
Prosecutors stated that these acts were part of the organization’s efforts to eradicate the Yazidi religion. German prosecutors invoked universal jurisdiction laws that allow them to prosecute crimes against humanity regardless of where they occurred.
In a significant precedent set in 2021, a German court sentenced a former ISIS member to life imprisonment for his role in genocide and crimes against humanity targeting the Yazidis. This decision came two years after German lawmakers officially recognized the crimes committed by ISIS militants against the Yazidis in Iraq in 2014 as genocide.
The Yazidis, an ancient religious minority in eastern Syria and northwest Iraq, were heavily persecuted by ISIS, resulting in the deaths of thousands, the enslavement of 7,000 Yazidi women and girls, and the displacement of the majority of their community of 550,000 from their ancestral homeland in northern Iraq. ISIS targeted the Yazidis due to their unique faith, which merges elements of Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Manichaeism, Christianity, and Islam.
