ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A German court on Monday sentenced an Iraqi man to life in prison for enslaving and abusing two Yazidi girls, who were later handed over to Islamic State (ISIS) militants. His former partner received nine and a half years. Both were arrested in last year, German media reported.
The suspects, identified only as Twana H.S. and Asia R.A., were married under Islamic law and arrested in April 2024 “on suspicion of genocide, crimes against humanity, as well as membership in the foreign terrorist organization Islamic State,” Germany’s Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office said in a press release at the time.
The Munich Higher Regional Court on Monday sentenced the man, Twana H.S., to life imprisonment and the woman, Asia R.A., to nine years and six months for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes against the two Yazidi children, aged five and 12, BILD reported.
Asia R.A. was a juvenile at the time the crimes occurred, according to Deutsche Welle.
Prosecutors said the Yazidi girls were forced into domestic labor and indoctrinated with ISIS ideology, while Twana H.S. allegedly raped both children repeatedly, with his wife accused of assisting — including preparing a room and applying makeup to one girl before assaults. The man also allegedly beat one girl with a broom handle, while the woman scalded the other's hand with hot water; both were repeatedly forced to stand on one leg as punishment, according to BILD.
When ISIS lost territory in late 2017, the couple fled but handed the girls over to other ISIS-affiliated people rather than freeing them.
In June 2014, ISIS seized large parts of northern and western Iraq. By August, the group launched a brutal campaign against the Yazidi community in Shingal, killing an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 Yazidi men and older women, and abducting 6,417 women and girls for sexual slavery, physical abuse and human trafficking. The United Nations and some countries have officially recognized the campaign against the Yazidis as a genocide.
Nearly 3,600 survivors have since been rescued, according to the Kurdistan Region's Office of Rescuing Abducted Yazidis. Germany has convicted several former ISIS fighters of genocide and other crimes against humanity.
