Justice for genocide: Yazidis hopeful as Islamic State trial opens in Germany

Elizabeth Hagedorn

Apr 24, 2020

Defence lawyers Serkan Alkan (L) and Martin Heising (R) look on as the Iraqi defendant, identified only as Taha al-J., believed to have belonged to the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, hides his face while arriving into the courtroom for the start of his trial for genocide and murdering a young Yazidi girl, he held as a slave, on April 24, 2020 at the Higher Regional Court (OLG) in Frankfurt am Main. - Defence lawyers Serkan Alkan (L) and Martin Heising (R) look on as the Iraqi defendant, identified only — Defense lawyers Serkan Alkan (L) and Martin Heising (R) look on as the Iraqi defendant, identified only as Taha Al-J, believed to have belonged to the Islamic State (IS) jihadi group, hides his face while arriving into the courtroom for the start of his trial for genocide and murdering a young Yazidi girl whom he held as a slave, April 24, 2020, at the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt.

Over 2,000 miles away from former Islamic State (IS) territory in Iraq, a court in Frankfurt, Germany, began Friday what's considered the world’s first trial for genocide against the Yazidi religious minority.

The suspect, identified only as Taha Al-J under German privacy laws, is a 37-year-old Iraqi national extradited from Greece to Germany in October 2019. According to the indictment, he purchased and enslaved a Yazidi woman and her 5-year-old daughter in the summer of 2015.