The suspects, identified only as Twana H.S. and Asia R.A., were married under Islamic law and arrested in Bavaria on Tuesday “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.
They are accused of holding a then five-year-old Yazidi girl as a slave and later a then twelve-year-old Yazidi girl as well between October 2015 and December 2017. During that period, “Twana H.S. repeatedly raped both children. To this end, Asia R.A. prepared the room and put make-up on one of the girls.”
The victims were further exploited into housework and childcare, were prohibited from practicing their faith, and were forced to partake in Islamic prayers and belief, prosecutors alleged.
In another heinous example of their actions, “Twana H. S. and Asia R. A. applied harsh physical violence to the detriment of the children in case of alleged mistakes. On one occasion, Twana H. S. hit the older girl with a broomstick. Asia R. A. scalded the younger girl’s hand with hot water and repeatedly forced both children to stand on one leg for a half hour each, as a form of punishment,” according to the prosecutors.
ISIS swept through vast swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014 and declared a so-called “caliphate” in a brazen offensive that saw the group take control of around a third of Syria’s territory as well as several Iraqi cities, including the second largest northern city of Mosul. It was declared territorially defeated in 2017 and 2019 in both countries respectively.
During the jihadists’ brutal reign, they committed heinous atrocities, such as genocide, sexual slavery, and massacres against non-Muslims, especially the Yazidi ethnoreligious group. Christians and Shiite Muslims were also a target.
Before the couple left Syria in November 2017, they handed the girls to other ISIS members.
“All of this served the organization’s objective to destroy the Yazidi religion,” their statement said.
They are being held in pre-trial detention.
German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann commended the arrests, saying “when it comes to combating terrorists and religiously motivated crimes against international law, our justice system has a long arm and lasting power.”
More than 6,000 Yazidis were abducted when ISIS overran the community’s heartland of Shingal (Sinjar) in 2014. Around 2,700 remain missing, with little done to bring solace to the rescued.
In January 2023, the German parliament recognized the 2014 crimes against the Yazidi community by ISIS as “genocide.” Berlin has been an essential member of the US-led global coalition against ISIS.
On Sunday, a German MP from the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party told Rudaw that Berlin has not done enough to prosecute what he said was over 5,000 suspected “war criminals” from Iraq and Syria, mostly ISIS members, who entered the country since 2014.
Germany frequently prosecutes those who committed serious crimes abroad, such as crimes against humanity, on the legal principle of “universal jurisdiction,” giving Berlin the green light to prosecute international crimes regardless of where they were committed.