A trial opened in Paris on Monday against French jihadist Sabri Essid, marking the first time France has prosecuted genocide charges linked to atrocities committed against the Yazidi minority during the Islamic State’s reign of terror in the Middle East.

Essid, believed to have been killed in 2018 but without confirmed proof of death, is being tried in absentia. He faces charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, and complicity in these crimes, allegedly committed between 2014 and 2016.

Three Yazidi women have joined the case as civil parties, with two expected to testify. The Yazidis, a Kurdish-speaking religious minority, were targeted in August 2014 when IS massacred thousands of men in Iraq’s Sinjar province and enslaved women and children. UN investigators later classified these acts as genocide.

Essid, born in Toulouse in 1984, joined IS in Syria in 2014. He is accused of purchasing Yazidi women in slave markets, subjecting them to repeated sexual violence, and depriving them of food and water. Known as Abu Dojanah al-Faransi, Essid was reportedly close to Jean-Michel and Fabien Clain, who claimed responsibility for the 2015 Paris attacks.

His wife, imprisoned in France after returning from Syria, is set to testify during the trial, which runs until Friday. In one IS propaganda video, Essid was seen coercing his 12-year-old stepson to execute a hostage.

Human rights lawyers stress the importance of the trial, noting that IS fighters presumed dead have resurfaced before. They argue the proceedings must highlight the genocidal policies specifically targeting Yazidis, rather than framing IS crimes solely as terrorism.

Similar cases have emerged across Europe. In 2021, a German court issued the first global ruling recognizing IS crimes against Yazidis as genocide, sentencing an Iraqi man to life imprisonment. More recently, a Swedish court convicted a woman of genocide for enslaving Yazidi women and children in Syria.

Though IS’s self-proclaimed caliphate collapsed in 2019, remnants of the group remain active. According to the Kidnapped Yazidi Rescue Office, more than 6,400 Yazidis were abducted, with over half rescued to date.